Tephra
by September Severtana
Summary: John has worked for Moriarty as an assassin for two years, and there has been no job he couldn't do. But when Moriarty tells him to destroy Sherlock, John realizes there are some things he can't do. Eventually, he needs more than just an adrenaline rush or someone to know him for what he is. He needs Sherlock.
1. Magma

**I miss writing Sherlock, so I'm starting a new multi-chapter.**

* * *

"Watson, you're up. Boss has a new mission for ya," Moran said, grinning from around the corner. John nodded and stood; the bench he had been sitting on was rickety, and the place Moriarty had wanted to meet was dodgy even to his standards. The man enjoyed every decision he made and the way it scared people. He also enjoyed punishing John in brutal ways for tardiness. John began to walk down the street, taking care to not look around too much. Fear hung in the air like lanterns hung from trees during a birthday party. John nearly laughed at the comparison. Madness was all too common here. Maybe if things were different...but they weren't.

He could follow the sounds of the screams and hysterical giggling to get him to his destination. Moriarty did love his torture, and he wasn't modest or careful about it like some people John used to know. He was reckless, insane, and a genius. John didn't even want to escape anymore. When he first got pulled into doing these jobs, he worried about the morality of it, the way his loved ones would look at him if they knew. Of course, he didn't have any loved ones, so it began to not matter. But sometimes, John scared himself.

Just one more job, and he'll let me go, John repeated in his head. He'll find no more use for me soon enough, and then I can go.

"Hello, my dear Johnny boy! I missed you so!" John found himself attacked by a man in a suit. Moriarty hugged him and smiled. He never got used to that. It never failed to catch him off guard. "How was France?"

"Fairly rainy for this time of year," John replied, making sure he remembered to hug Moriarty back. The man was the snake in the jungle of London, and any wrong move could be dangerous for not just him, but the crying, bleeding, torn up woman lying on the ground at their feet. "How was it while I was gone?"

Moriarty sighed. "So _dull._ Tell me, Johnny, why should I put up with all of these people if they are dull like that?"

"Those people do jobs for you. They do your dirty work, just like me, and then you reap the benefits without having to lift a finger. Your mind can concentrate on other things." John tapped a finger on Moriarty's forehead playfully. It took a long time for Moriarty to let him get away with things like that. "Your mind only needs the boring people for a short time, and then they go away, far far away and you never have to see them again."

Moriarty seemed to think about this for a moment. John tried to stop holding his breath. "You're right quite a lot, Johnny."

"I like to think so," he answered, letting out a nearly imperceptible sigh of relief. But Moriarty was perceptive, and John should have known.

"You're right that I don't need the boring people, I can just make them go away." The man untangled himself from John's arms and pulled out the gun from the waistband of John's pants, shooting the nameless woman he had been torturing. The sound of the bullet leaving the gun caused John to wince, holding out his hand for his gun back.

"No, Johnny, you don't get it back yet. I know you were trying to give good advice, but there was one, little, tiny, almost insignificant flaw to it. Do you know what that flaw is? Hm?" Moriarty stoked the barrel of the gun across John's cheek. "Answer me, darling, before I teach you a similar lesson."

"When I become boring, you can kill me too, I know that." John placed his hand over his boss's. "I welcome the day when it comes. But for now, I'd rather hear what this mission is that you have for me."

Moriarty full-out laughed. "You should have been an actor! All those lovely skills gone to waste by being a killer, what a shame!" John didn't say anything back. "Fine, if you want to be a good little employee, then I'll tell you the mission." His eyes gleamed predatorily. "I chose you because you're not just a killer: you're my _favorite_ killer."

"I'm flattered," John said numbly.

"There's a man called Sherlock Holmes. I want him destroyed."

"From a rooftop, or from close range?"

Moriarty smiled. "I don't want you to shoot him, at least, not yet. I want you to make him love you, and then I want you to break him, and _then_ you can shoot him. Clear?"

"Yes. You did give me the steps to the process, after all," John replied sarcastically. Sometimes, it made Moriarty enjoy him more. And wasn't that just the point?

"I love it when you're feisty!" Moriarty said happily. "It's really quite sexy with your defiance."

"I'm glad you think so." His answer was a murmur, but his boss still heard.

"Now, you need to get out of here. Word on the street is that Sherly is looking for a new flatmate again. The man can't keep one, but I hope he keeps you." Moriarty gave one last scathing look to the body on the ground before skipping off. "Goodbye, Johnny! Keep me posted!"

Once John was sure Moriarty was gone, he stooped down to pick up the woman's body. He took extra care with her, because even though he knew she was dead, she didn't deserve to be treated like shite through her last moments. John needed to find out her name, add it to the list of everyone he didn't have the ability to save. It was quite a long list after only two years of working for Moriarty. There never seemed to be enough time to save anyone.

He carefully placed her in a Dumpster, her arms crossed and her dress moved to skillfully cover her. Her face was nearly unrecognizable, but John knew that where she was going, it didn't matter. "In this time of darkness, lead another to light. In this time of sorrow, lead another to happiness. In this time of death, You lead another to a new life. May my actions absolve her, but may Your actions free her. Let me carry the weight of sin, while she goes unburdened to Heaven. In Your name I pray, Amen." John took a book of matches from his pocket and struck one, lighting it and throwing it into the Dumpster, turning away from the now burning woman.

"One more funeral," he said to himself, "one more funeral and then I can go."

* * *

John had heard about the suicides in the news. The people were random, like they were chosen off the street, but the cause of death was the same. Pills kill, John rhymed, swinging his feet from the tall chair in the therapist's office. It was actually really funny: Moriarty continued to fund John's therapy even after John was too messed up to be fixed anymore. Moriarty loved it, the idea that someone could come back from what he did to the people who worked for him. And so, here John was.

"John Watson?" Ella called. She insisted he call her Ella, and he didn't understand why.

"Yes, I'm coming." John hopped off the chair, taking his cane with him. On the weeks without jobs, his limp would come back, and right now, there was nothing he could do about it. There was no danger in seducing and killing a man, not even the danger of getting caught. John was too good to get caught, or that had been his experience.

"So, how's your blog coming?" she asked once they were both seated again, pen poised to make a list of judgments.

John didn't answer her, choosing to not notice her similarities to the woman he'd aided (cremated) that morning.

"You haven't been doing it, have you?" Her voice scolded him, and John glared at her.

"No one on the entire planet wishes to know about the life of a sad, old war veteran with a leg that isn't supposed to limp who reminisces about the good days when he was mowing people down with a sniper rifle." He dismissed the question entirely. John was so sick of this line of inquiry after six weeks. He needed a new therapist, or he could ask Moriarty to get him a new one. Maybe, he might even say yes.

"Are you afraid of opening up?"

"Nobody wants to hear about the life I once had, nor the life I currently have." _Killing people for the adrenaline rush and because I'm terrified,_ he silently added. John looked over to see what Ella made of that and scoffed. " _'Trust issues'_? I do not have trust issues!"

"And yet, you're reading my notes," Ella pointed out. "A blog would really help you explore your feelings and move on with your life."

"There is no moving on from my life." John grabbed his cane and heaved himself up. "I need a new damn therapist with some sense of originality." He hated it that she was right. But he also hated that there was nothing to save him now.

* * *

He knew it was stupid to stomp out of places in a huff, especially since the limp was back and any sort of stomping looked pretty fucking pathetic, but occasionally he could pull a Moriarty and say screw them. The park was right next to the therapist's office, so he decided to take some sort of a walk before he went back to his bedsit and waited for coordinates on Holmes' location. Why not? At least it was sunny out, right?

There were a lot of citizens of London jogging, running, flirting, and just plain living in the park today. Easily one person from every walk of life passed John by as he sat on another bench instead of walking. The fabrics of their lives were so fragile, John knew that better than anyone, but it didn't matter to them. They couldn't see, and it wasn't John's place to show them. Plus, he'd had enough of the pessimistic influences in his own life.

John focused so hard on the figures passing by, he scarcely noticed the voice calling his name. "John! John Watson!" He looked up, and there, huffing and puffing, was Mike Stamford.

"Mike, how are you?"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking. I thought you were in Afghanistan getting shot at. What happened?" His good humor kind of irritated John, but he didn't want to give it away. Politeness and acting got him through some worse situations than this.

"I got shot," John replied tersely, gesturing at his leg with his cane, even though he had actually been shot in the shoulder. Mike's face fell, and John couldn't say he wasn't happy.

"So, what's it like being back?"

"Well, an army pension doesn't buy much in this town but I manage. It would be alright with me to get an actual flatshare instead of the dump I'm in now, but it's fine. The sun is nice after all the rain," John said, although, he didn't know whether it rained in London while he was in France or not.

"It's funny that you need a flatmate."

"How is it funny? Who could possibly want to be my flatmate?" John could have laughed at that. Honestly, he had way worse chances of getting a flatmate than whoever Sherlock Holmes was. And he still needed a plan for that infiltration, damn it. He was an absolute mess, and anyone who said differently was a liar. He _worked_ with liars.

"You know, he said the same exact thing to me when the subject came up. I have a feeling you'd hit it off."

John shrugged. "Why not?"

* * *

For some reason, the person Mike wanted him to meet had simply no interest in looking up from his microscope.

"Can I borrow your phone?" he asked, holding out a long-fingered hand.

"Sorry, I left mine at home." Mike smiled, and John didn't understand why.

"Here, use mine." He handed his phone to the man, who merely glanced at it before typing out a text message and sending it. The man handed the phone back, well, he actually just held it out and waited for John to take it from him.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

John stared at him. "Excuse me?" He looked over at Mike, but he just kept smiling slightly.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" And the man removed his gaze from his microscope, beginning to scrape it over John like he was the magnified specimen. He stared more than John had ever stared, eyes piercing and constantly changing colors. John couldn't look away, and he only knew one other person that happened with. _Moriarty._

"Afghanistan," John answered quietly. "How did you know?"

"I didn't know, I saw." A small grin spread across his face. All of the sudden, John noticed his face. He had sharp cheekbones and dark, dark curly hair and John wanted to fall into his tall frame. But the man had laughter dripping from his lips, mirth enveloping him. The laughing men were normally the madmen. And he generally fell in with madmen.

"I play the violin at all hours. I may not talk for days, it's perfectly normal. I come home covered in blood or river water or body parts sometimes. I also perform experiments at my leisure."

"Why are you telling me all this?" John asked.

"Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other, don't you agree? I have the advantage, as well."

"How do you have the advantage?"

"I know you're an invalided, honorably discharged war veteran with an alcoholic sibling, a psychosomatic limp, and an adrenaline addiction. You're an army doctor, which in and of itself is a lovely contradiction, however, you haven't been a doctor in a long time, two years perhaps. You haven't been searching for a flatmate for very long, maybe since this morning, and you burned something in a Dumpster earlier. There, you see?"

"What?"

"I know far more about you than you know about me."

"Some reciprocation would be appreciated," John shot back, not angry at all, more intrigued. Damn, he was tumbling into the same traps.

"The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street." He winked on his way out the door and John froze in his tracks as he realized something.

He couldn't kill Sherlock. This was one job he didn't think he could do.

* * *

 **I hope you will read + review. Reviews are like gold to authors. Or perhaps silver.**


	2. Pressure

**Here we go! Next chapter.**

* * *

John decided to meet Sherlock at his flat in the afternoon, since he needed to contact Moriarty and keep him in the loop. He loved knowing what was going on with all John's kills, it exhilarated him. It just made John sick, but he had no other choice.

He quickly shuffled through an alley and made his way to an unobservable place in the city. John guarded this with a great deal of care, because there were so few areas of London not covered by the CCTV. He always felt like someone was constantly watching him when he saw a camera. John's paranoia from the war hadn't gotten better since he started working for Moriarty, after all.

He pulled out the phone that Sherlock had been texting from, noting that nothing else of his personal contacts or messages had been touched. Sherlock trusted him. John felt an extreme sadness threaten to overtake him. None of this was John's fault, somewhere inside, he knew that. But that didn't matter to Sherlock, or to Moriarty.

John wondered how much of his soul was left. According to J.K. Rowling, the soul split every time you killed someone. The only soul left in his body could have been one fiftieth, or maybe one sixtieth of what it used to be. Where did all those little pieces of soul go? Were they simply scattered in the wind, or attached to others? Did someone have a piece of his soul? He knew Moriarty would love to take that opportunity. But maybe the soul just withered away until there was nothing left. John was certain that would happen someday.

He dialed the number marked 'Jimmy', since that was what Moriarty put himself in John's phone as. It was a very good way to not get caught, to have your all-powerful boss's first name in your phone. People never checked that closely, they normally thought Jimmy was just a mate. If only they knew! John put the phone to his ear.

"So, you met him, then?" Moriarty sounded so excited. "He's wonderful, isn't he? This job should be pretty easy."

"Yeah, he's a genius. Like you." John let a little fondness leak through, to potentially placate his boss.

"Yes, rather like me." He tsked. "But you can't allow him to get to you, Johnny."

"I won't. You don't need to worry about me."

Moriarty laughed. "I never do. But I can't help it sometimes. Sometimes I think you're going to find someone else, and you're going to leave me all alone with the boring people. Maybe you'll find yourself a pretty little wife and a white picket fence someday."

"It's not in the cards for me, James," John said softly. "Nor is it in the cards for Mr. Holmes."

His boss was smiling, he could almost hear it through the speaker. "Quite right about that last part. You're meeting him later to look at the flat, correct?"

"I am."

"Good. I hope you like it there. I might let you have it after he's gone." He said it like a sort of reward, like he was convincing a child to pick up their toys. John wanted to throw up, but he had to keep acting.

"Thanks. Anyway, I should probably go. Sherlock looked pretty eager."

"Eager for Johnny to come see him, how _novel_." Moriarty giggled and said his goodbye, hanging up the phone. John put his mobile in his pocket slowly, beginning to walk back into the CCTV range again. The streets were just as crowded as they were before, and the people were no less impatient, but John was different from all of them. His heart had stopped moving, and his legs had far too much patience. The longer he dragged this out, the longer he had before he had to go.

* * *

The door for 221B had a crooked brass knocker. John had a feeling that someone walking by would like to straighten it every time it happened, but he liked it. He knocked on the door and an older woman opened it. "You must be John, Sherlock's been talking about you all day!"

"Really?" John smiled. "He made more of an impression on me."

"He tends to, but at least you're here now. Biscuit?" She held out a plate of them, and he neatly declined. Eating after talking to Moriarty was a bad idea, he had learned. "Sherlock, John's here!" she called up the stairs.

When John stepped inside, the first thing he noticed was the violin music coming from a higher floor. It was...beautiful, complicated, and fast. Damn, he always had a thing for musicians. And geniuses. And madmen. Ugh! He huffed and climbed the steps, stopping at the first landing and peeking into the room. Sherlock wore a dressing gown and slacks, an odd combination, but it seemed to suit him. He never stopped playing, even when John knew he knew who had just walked in.

The song completed, Sherlock turned around and grinned at him, effectively knocking John's socks off. He had the worst luck in the world. "I would give you the tour, but it's fairly self-explanatory. The kitchen is through there, the bathroom and my bedroom down the hall, and you're standing in the sitting room." He paused. "Do you like it?"

John's heart melted at his tone of voice. "Yeah." He walked further into the flat, turning in a circle as he looked around. The wallpaper mismatched in some places, there was a yellow smiley face painted on the wall, two skulls occupied separate places in the room. Also, there seemed to be something dead on the countertop. John's lips spread in a smile. "I can't really explain it, but it feels like..."

"Home?" Sherlock asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"I didn't know, I saw." He set his violin down on the couch.

"You're awfully observant, aren't you?"

"I'm rather insulted you didn't figure that out before now." The two men smirked at each other, and John sat down in the comfy-looking red chair across from where Sherlock stood, carefully balancing his cane on the end table.

The woman from earlier came to the door and said, "There's a second bedroom upstairs if you'll be needing it."

John looked at her in surprise. "Thanks for saying so."

"Mrs. Hudson, I would like a cup of coffee," Sherlock interjected, embarrassment flashing over his face. "Black, two sugars."

"Dear, I'm not your housekeeper, just your landlady," she said, but she disappeared, presumably to make coffee.

"Am I the only one that thinks she says that far too often with her actions contradicting her?" John asked, refusing to let Sherlock try to justify what she said before. He didn't need to do that, John got it. Sherlock was lonely, and someone else just happened to notice. He couldn't be the only who noticed things.

"You aren't. I've thought that as long as I've known her." Sherlock waved a hand in dismissal. "But having Mrs. Hudson as both is quite helpful when it comes to getting a really reduced rate."

"I don't have any income right now, but I promise I'll get a job soon," John said worriedly. Killing didn't pay much right now, Moriarty liked playing with it so John would keep coming back, as if he needed more incentive to go back to him.

"I make enough to tide us over for a month or two." Sherlock shrugged indulgently.

"How did you get the reduced rates, anyway?" John was honestly curious. Prime flatshares were so difficult to come by, especially in this part of town, that there had to be a very good reason.

Sherlock walked straight up to John's chair and knelt in front of him, staring John in the eye. "Mrs. Hudson's husband was being charged with murder in Florida, and I solved the case."

"So you stopped him from being killed?" Death row had a certain significance to a man that killed people for money about every other week. He'd rather end up dead by Moriarty's hand than after a trial and long imprisonment. That should clarify his feelings on the subject. John hated the idea of dying like that.

"No, I ensured it." Sherlock's mouth quirked up. John suddenly noticed how close they were sitting; Sherlock was virtually in his lap, and John's hands could just reach down and wrap around his waist and pull him closer...But this was what Moriarty wanted. He had to stop.

Before he could move, Mrs. Hudson came back up the stairs with Sherlock's coffee. She nearly dropped it when she saw them, but then she simply smiled. "Your coffee's ready, dear. The pot's full in my kitchen if you would like some as well, John."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," John managed to choke out. She set the cup of coffee on the end table with John's cane and left the room, saying something about visiting her friend Mrs. Turner next door. Sherlock slowly stood up and went to the window once she was gone; John barely registered police sirens. The other man's back was turned, so John couldn't see his face, or know if he did something wrong. He _could not_ blow this.

Sherlock watched something out the window for a minute or so, maybe it was the police cars. It sounded as if three or more of them were all heading the same direction. "There's been another one!" he shouted gleefully, the opposite of how John thought he'd react from being come on to by another man. "And this one's different!"

"What are you on about, Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson asked from the doorway, having brought a cup of coffee up for John as well.

"The serial suicides, of course!" Sherlock threw off his dressing gown and runs to the coatrack. "Three so far, none have left any sort of note, but this one has! Oh, my darling housekeeper, it's Christmas!" He slipped on his long, dark coat and a blue scarf and practically flew down the stairs, shouting up, "I'd like my coffee heated up for when I get back!"

John rolled his eyes. He had known Sherlock for perhaps a few hours, and he already understood that this was common behavior. Sherlock ran off when something interesting caught his attention, just like Moriarty, but Sherlock was more like a child playing cops and robbers than an insane criminal. It warmed him from the inside out.

Mrs. Hudson picked his cane off the end table and held it out to him, because she knew he was going after him. John gratefully smiled at her and somehow stood up, limping toward the door. While the landlady began to clean the kitchen, muttering about how she wished Sherlock would stop bringing disembodied toes home, John tried to go down the stairs. Maybe if he followed the sirens, he'd make it to the crime scene before the other man was off again.

It turned out that he didn't have to. Sherlock hadn't left yet.

"You've seen a lot of carnage in your time, haven't you? A lot of pain, a lot of death." Sherlock had his elbow propped on the handrail at the bottom of the stairs. John was sure he was intentionally blocking John's way.

"I have. Far too much, actually."

The other man took John's hand as he came down the last three steps. "Want to see some more?"

John smiled. "Oh God yes." On that, whether with Sherlock or Moriarty, he could always be sure.

* * *

The crime scene was on the second floor of a building in Lauriston Gardens, a bit decrepit and shabby, but John knew this killer was smart. You always chose places to kill people where you were unlikely to be discovered for a while. The woman laid facedown on the floor, her left hand next to a message carved into the wood floor. 'Rache', but it looked incomplete, and the woman's hand looked ready to begin another letter. "Rachel?" John asked aloud.

Sherlock glanced at him in surprise. "Yes. It says Rachel, but the significance of that is sadly unknown." He cocked his head and stared at the body intently.

A rather annoying, mousy man peeking in said, "It's obviously the German for revenge. I don't know why you didn't see it."

"Yes, thank you." Sherlock shut the door in the man's face. "Now, what's the meaning of Rachel?"

"Could be her daughter, she's about that age," John suggested. "She scratched the name into the floor, so it has to be someone very important to her."

"John, that's brilliant!" Sherlock exclaimed, looking at him like he was the sun for one glorious moment. "What would I do without you?"

John winced. _You wouldn't die if I wasn't here to kill you._

* * *

 **Read + review and you'll get to give John a hug!**


	3. Glass Shards

**I'm glad you guys like it so far. Here's chapter three!**

* * *

John thought there had to be something wrong with the way he looked at Sherlock. It felt like a voice in his head told him to keep staring, to keep watching him move. Sherlock moved like a dancer; he moved like there was music playing in his head, something only Sherlock could hear, but everyone noticed. Or, John hoped they didn't notice. He wanted this all to himself, and how sad was that? Eventually, some horrible day that John hoped was far in the future, he'd bury this man.

When Sherlock finally flew out of the crime scene, John sighed in relief. He shouldn't feel this way about just another job.

He didn't bother catching a cab; the flat was close enough that he could walk without too much discomfort. John had some leftover adrenaline from rushing to the crime scene. From the bottom of his heart, John hoped he didn't bump into anyone he knew. He couldn't face them, not like this.

The first sign of something strange was when all the phones he passed began to ring. A man inside a bakery picked one up, but there wasn't any answer. John had heard of things like this; Moriarty talked about one of his dear friends who kidnapped people in black cars after threatening them over the phone. It sounded as if Moriarty enjoyed this person, but whenever he told the story, he hugged John close and reassured him that he would always be Moriarty's favorite. It ate away at John, he knew it. Little gestures like that would take John away forever.

He wondered if Moriarty's obsession with him would ever subside. He also wondered if his obsession with Moriarty would go. John tended to laugh after thinking about this.

When the phone box next to him rang, the fifth phone in a row, John stepped inside the red box and answered it. "Hello?"

The mysterious person didn't reply, so he tried again. "Hello?"

"Dr. John Watson. Captain."

"That's me. Who are you and what do you want with me?"

"Get into the car, John. I don't think I need to make my request any clearer." The truth was that John really was just curious. If his boss thought that much of this friend of his, John wanted to see him. His voice was smooth and almost oily, a far cry from Sherlock's wonky accent. He hung up the phone as the car drove up. Black.

The woman inside wouldn't give him a second glance, so John just shrugged and stayed silent through the remainder of the drive. Of course, the mysterious bloke wanted to meet in an abandoned warehouse. Ooh, _so_ scary. He was practically _trembling_ in his _boots._ Having Moriarty as a regular addition to his social life made him immune to this sort of thing. It was boring, overdone, and frankly, this man could do better.

The man leaned against a chair, a smirk flitting briefly across his face as John exited the car. "So, this is what Moriarty's pet looks like. I have to say I'm impressed."

John snorted. "I'm not. A warehouse, really? James used to have taste."

With a look like he'd stepped in shit, the man raised an eyebrow. "And you're any more tasteful than I am? You, John Watson, are effectively an addict that Moriarty keeps around for the exact purpose of using for his dirty work. Since you get paid for it, you're more of a cheap whore than anything else."

"And what are you? You look to me like one of those higher-ups with the intent of scorning people not like yourself, but when you need someone like me, you _come_ on your hands and knees, begging me with money and prestige. You're no better than I am, _dear._ " John never let his gaze leave the other man's. He decided that he liked being Moriarty's favorite, since it kept him away from people like this. He'd known people exactly the same as this guy in the army; he'd hated them then, and he hated them now.

"If you have nothing more to say to me, I'd appreciate it if you drove me home." John started walking back to the car, not looking back for anything.

"I do actually have more to say to you." The man seemed to have gotten over his momentary lapse in speech.

It was John's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Do tell. Are you going to insult me more?"

"I don't believe so, unless you particularly deserve it." The man took a breath and glanced over at a small pocketbook that had materialized in his hand. "You've acquired a new residence, if I'm not mistaken."

"What's it to you? Is James worried about me again?" John smirked. He loved how he could take control of situations that other couldn't. This man probably scared the living shit out of people, but honestly, John was having a grand old time right here.

"No. Actually, the worry is directed toward your flatmate, a Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

John stiffened. "What about him?"

"You just met, didn't you?"

"Yes, we met maybe a day and a half ago."

"And now you're moving in together? Should James and I be expecting a happy announcement by the end of the week?"

John shook his head. "It's nothing like that. He and I had a mutual need for a new place to live, and I quite enjoy spending time with the bloke."

A corner of the man's lip turned up in derision. "You really are a cheap whore." He put away his pocketbook and opened his umbrella, which John had catalogued a few minutes ago as a potential weapon. "You can go home now, John. I've had enough of you to last a lifetime, and it's a shame that Moriarty likes you, otherwise you'd be a splotch on the concrete. Enjoy your time with Sherlock Holmes." He waved cheerfully and walked away, straight out of the warehouse without looking back.

John rolled his eyes. They all had to be so dramatic. Of course, he could be observing that to draw his attention away from the way the man had looked at him in reference to Sherlock. The idea that he would use Sherlock like that was disgusting, but John knew that was what he'd end up doing. He'd use Sherlock, and then he'd be gone. And John would have the money and missing soul to prove it.

* * *

The black car and the woman inside of it drove off after dropping John off at the flat that he already thought of as home. He climbed the steps, and not hearing anything from inside, opened the door to 221B quietly. Sherlock might have been asleep.

But he wasn't. Sherlock had neatly sprawled himself over the couch, hands poised under his chin like he was praying. His eyes were closed and his breathing was quiet, but there were nicotine patches on his arm, so John knew he had to be awake.

"Sherlock? I met a friend of yours, well, an enemy of yours."

"Did he offer you money?" he asked back, still not opening his eyes.

John thought for a moment. "No, he didn't offer me money. He actually seemed to dislike the idea of giving me money."

Sherlock flashed open the eye closest to John, but then shut it again. "That's strange. He must be changing tactics."

"So, this happens a lot then?" John could imagine that. The man was known for kidnapping in Moriarty's circle.

"Every person I meet, it happens. It's a shame though; if you had said yes to the money, we'd have an easier time paying the rent."

"Well, next time I see him, I'll ask for cash. How's that?" John smiled at Sherlock.

Sherlock opened both eyes and sat up quickly, focusing on John's pocket. "I need to borrow your phone."

"Again?"

The other man glared at him. "Yes, _again._ Now, give me it before I steal it. I am quite adept at stealing things."

John smirked, pulling the phone from his pocket and handing to Sherlock. "That doesn't surprise me."

While Sherlock tapped away on his keyboard, John drifted into the kitchen to make tea. He found a lot of strange things in the cupboards, namely eyeballs, pickled something-or-other, chocolate biscuits, and finally, some chamomile tea. John tried to pull the box down, but the height was just unfortunate enough that he couldn't reach it. He looked around for a stepstool or possibly a chair, but the only chairs were in the sitting room. John huffed and turned around to find Sherlock standing just behind him, perhaps only a few centimeters away. He took in a quick breath, then settled and asked, "The tea up there. Could you get it for me, please?"

Sherlock wordlessly reached up over John's head and grabbed the box of tea, never straying from John's gaze. The two of them were so _close_ , and John hated this because it meant...well, it meant things he didn't want to think about. He could hear James laughing at them both in the background.

"Thank you," John managed to say. They looked at each other for a little while longer, but then the moment was broken.

"I texted the killer with your phone, you know."

John jumped, nearly dropping the box. "Damn it! Couldn't you have used your own phone for that?"

"My number is on my website, and possibly could be recognized." Sherlock just wouldn't back down, would he? John definitely liked that.

"Fine then. Are you and I and he or she going to have it out in a pub then? Or perhaps we're going to fight all civilized, like in a park or something." John had killed someone in a park once. Nice guy, bit of a nervous habit with his ring. John buried him under a bench there, careful to use gloves like Moriarty taught him. The digging of the grave gave him blisters for weeks.

"No. Actually we're not meeting him at all. He's going to be across the street from us." Sherlock folded his arms. "If you want to keep making tea, you're welcome to, but I'm going."

John just stood there with the tea in one hand and the teapot in the other for a few seconds, and then swore, grabbing his gun and dropping everything he had been previously holding.

* * *

Before the killer showed up, John got a phone call, loudly and in the middle of the restaurant. He looked at the ID and shivered. James could really pick the times, couldn't he?

"Hey. This is a bad time, I'm super busy." John motioned to Sherlock that he'd be outside to finish the call, and he just continued picking at the food John had ordered for him. He could barely believe Sherlock didn't eat while on a case. It was ridiculous, and frankly, a fair bit stupid.

"I know you are, darling. That's why I'll make this fast." James paused. "Mikey doesn't like you at all, but I don't like him, so I applaud you." He laughed happily. "It normally takes so much to piss him off, but you're a natural!"

"Was it your idea for us to meet?" John asked quietly.

"Lord, no. I despise that man. And he called you a whore." Suddenly Moriarty's voice went dangerously soft. "I'm sorry he did that. I'll make him really pay, just you wait."

"You don't have to, James. I think I scarred him enough for one day." John's smile was back.

"Indeed you did! I've never seen anything like it in all the years we've done business."

John whispered, "Does he know about the mission?"

"Darling, of course not. Only you and I know about the mission," James reassured, and his Irish accent drew its fingers silkily over John's jawline. He could feel them.

He waited a little while before saying his goodbye, and James didn't hang up first, which was a change John didn't think he welcomed. John headed back inside the restaurant feeling no less uneasy than he did walking out. Sherlock looked as though he hadn't moved a muscle, but John knew he had to have.

"Sorry about that." John knew not to add any more details, because Sherlock would pick his lies apart as quickly as Moran did jobs.

"It's alright. The killer won't be here for another six and a half minutes, after all." Offering no explanation as to how he knew that, Sherlock fell silent, staring out the window. It was then that the enthusiastic server came back to the table, holding another candle.

"We really don't need that," John said. He didn't want Sherlock to freak out on him and leave.

The server didn't even argue, but he left the candle when he took Sherlock's plate. "I tried telling him we're not on a date, but he won't listen to me," John told Sherlock apologetically.

"I don't mind."

John did a double take. "You don't mind?"

"I don't mind. I haven't been on a date in a long time."

"No girlfriend, then?"

"Not really my area."

"Boyfriend?"

Sherlock stared through him like he could see John's fragmented soul. But that was irrational. "I'm flattered by your interest, John, really I am, however..." he trailed off, and those piercing eyes focused on a cab outside the window. "The killer is right there, and we have to catch him." And he ran from the restaurant, John barely keeping up behind him.

 _True_ , John thought to himself, _the killer is right here, but you don't see him._

* * *

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	4. Volcanic Plume

**You know, being sick gives me a ton of time to write for you guys. Gotta love optimism!**

* * *

Of course, the person in the cab John and Sherlock were chasing wasn't the murderer. They had traipsed all throughout the city, running while the cab drove, laughing as the ground thundered beneath their feet. John hadn't run like this since...oh, perhaps the Ukraine job over a year ago. He loved this; he loved the _chase._ It made him feel alive.

"That," John took a breath, "was," another, "the maddest thing," and again, "I have ever done."

Sherlock giggled. "And you invaded Afghanistan!"

John began to laugh with him. "I didn't do that on my own, though! There were other idiots involved!" The two of them simply giggled at each other and with each other for a few minutes, when finally Mrs. Hudson noticed they were back.

"Sherlock, what have you done now?" she asked. Sherlock looked up the stairs and his face hardened.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." He rushed up to the flat where the door was wide open, like someone had broken in. Or rather, a lot of someones. "What are you doing in my flat without permission?"

The detective from the crime scene earlier smiled at him. "We're doing a drugs bust! I've got Anderson looking all over." He gestured at the mousy-looking man that apparently knew some German.

"Why are you doing this? I am clean!" John couldn't help but notice how angry Sherlock really was. The drugs were a sort of taboo subject for him then. John knew how that felt; talking about his job to other people was quite similar. He couldn't exactly tell them he killed people for a living, now could he?

"You're obviously here for something else then, and you need some sort of cover to get in here," John figured aloud, glaring at all the members of the Scotland Yard in turn. "So just take what you need and leave." Sherlock glanced at him gratefully, and John nodded back.

The detective seemed surprised at the outburst. "We want the case. You stole the pink lady's case, and that's evidence that we need to complete the investigation."

John groaned annoyedly. "Seriously, the case is right on my chair. Your people are clearly blind if they can't see that." Now most of the police in the room, plus Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson, were staring at him. So what if John actually had some balls? Was that such an uncommon thing in the _civilized_ parts of London? If you worked for Moriarty, you either had balls, or you were fucking dead. The whole thing was kind of key to survival, and John was exceptional at surviving.

"Okay," the detective placated, his hands out in a 'back off' kind of thing. "We'll just take the case and go."

"I cannot be more thankful," John muttered, watching as the idiots filed out of the flat. Once they were all gone, he turned to Sherlock and asked, "Would you like that cup of tea now?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I need to think. They took the case, but I still remember every item in it, and I need to put the items together to make leads." He sank down into his chair and closed his eyes, which John took to mean, 'Please make me a cup of tea anyway because I have no knowledge of nutrition or cellular respiration'. John went off into the kitchen and heated up water in the teapot, humming a Beatles song under his breath.

When he was in the army, he had a small box of personal items that he kept at the head of his bed, under his pillow, right next to his gun. One of the things John brought to Afghanistan was a compilation of his favorite Beatles songs. He had them on cassettes, which he was sure the younger guys laughed about behind his back, but the tapes reminded him of being a kid, listening to the tunes on road trips to Brighton. After John got shot and left the army, he took the tapes with him when James wanted John to kill for him. Hidden away in dark alleys, freezing streets, even windy flatlands, he would hear the songs in his head. Moriarty often stole a tape or two from him, but he always gave the tapes back, which kind of baffled John. If James wanted to keep the music, he would have bought it, but he just borrowed from John, listening, and then leaving.

John shook his head and poured the hot water into two mugs, adding tea bags and letting sit for five minutes. He liked his tea with a lot of flavor. If Sherlock wanted to complain, he could. The idea of James made him a little irritable, so he tried not to take it out on anyone, namely his new flatmate. "Here you go." He set the cup of tea right next to Sherlock's chair, on an end table. He then drank his own tea and watched Sherlock's brain work.

Sherlock's eyes flitted everywhere, but John knew he wasn't looking at anything in the flat. He was calculating, examining data, fitting puzzle pieces together. It was a beautiful process, John understood that. Sometimes, he got lost in those thoughts. "Who hunts in the middle of a crowd? Where's the pink lady's phone? How do we find the killer?" Sherlock muttered. A few more minutes passed, and the man jumped out of his haze.

"John, your laptop." John handed Sherlock his laptop, which the other man knew the password to, but John was so beyond questioning that. He had no important files on his laptop anyway since one of Moriarty's men deleted things every two weeks.

He couldn't let Sherlock find out anything. Sherlock could not know.

"The pink lady used her phone for everything, she was having multiple affairs, and she was smart," Sherlock said as he typed. "The phone isn't in the case, which means she must have planted the phone on the killer and counted on us to track the phone." He pulled up a page called MePhone. "I know the email address, so the password has to be..."

"Rachel," John replied, catching on. That woman should have worked for MI6 or something.

"We can track the phone from here, and follow the killer to an ambush." Sherlock tapped his fingers restlessly on the arm of his chair while he waited for the website to load. But as soon as it did, both men stared at the screen in confusion.

"He can't be in the flat, that's just not possible," John said, glancing around the sitting room. "Don't you think we would have seen him?"

Sherlock didn't say anything back for a minute. "What?" John asked. "Do you think there's another way to find him?"

"I'm just surprised you didn't automatically think of me." His face twisted sorrowfully as he looked at John. "Sometimes, people at the Yard will accuse me of killing the victims, assuming that I actually have it in me to do such a thing. I can't imagine killing anyone for sport, for love, or even for payment."

Those words felt like a knife through John's back. He had his own reasons for killing that Sherlock would never understand that James always _did._ Sherlock had no right to judge him like that. "I know you couldn't either. You catch criminals, but you never could be one of them." He paused, forming his words so that his anger didn't show. He had to be calm for him. "You can do it, just rearrange the evidence in your mind. If the killer was in our flat, going by the pattern, he would be here to take us to a different location, so he would try to make his way in."

"Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson interrupted. "You've got a cab here for you."

"Not now, I'm thinking," Sherlock snapped back. "Who could make their way into the flat without much detection or suspicion? Why is it so easy for the killer to find his victims?"

"Sherlock, you really should take your cab now." Mrs. Hudson sounded oddly insistent, which John suddenly understood. The cab, the kidnappings, the difficulty in detection. It was literally right at the bottom of the stairs.

"You need to take the cab, Sherlock," John said, without any sort of inflection that might give him away to whoever listened. "You ordered it, and now you have to go. I'll be around if you need me." He looked his flatmate in the eye and made sure Sherlock comprehended hat he was trying to say. The epiphany hit Sherlock too after a second.

"Yes, I really should be going. I'll see you both later." The man swept out of the room and down the stairs, leaving the flat. As soon as John couldn't see the cab's outline in the street, he began reloading the MePhone page, tracking where the cab was heading to. After pulling the same page up on his mobile, he yanked on his jacket, checked his gun for ammunition and left the building as well.

The lights of London seemed too flashy and obnoxious to John, but then, he spent quite a bit of time in dark alleys and muted flats. With every block his cab traveled, the cab holding Sherlock traveled two more, too far ahead for John to follow. Sherlock could have been holding the pill in his hand right now, but not forced to take it yet. John didn't even know who the killer was.

Finally, both cabs stopped at some sort of college, unfortunately, a two-sided college. John had no idea which building Sherlock and the killer were in, so he started on the left, kicking the door open and climbing the first set of stairs he could see. The place looked empty, but many of the rooms had lights on, so John checked all of them. He shouted Sherlock's name through corridors and corridors, into classrooms and labs. There was no answer, and no answer was forthcoming. Everywhere was vacant.

John still had one more floor to check, so he again began his search, sprinting over the linoleum tiles of the halls, hoping there were no night watchmen to catch him in the act. He refused to go to prison for something so stupid. Only one classroom on this floor had a light on inside, and the door was partially open, so John entered that one first.

It turned out the light came from the room in the other building. John stood petrified as he noticed the pill in Sherlock's hand and the man whose back was to John egging him on. He shouted at the both of them, but neither heard. The glass of the windows was too thick for speech, but not enough for a bullet.

The last thought in John's head before shooting the cabbie was, _No one gets to kill Sherlock but me_.

* * *

John anonymously called the Scotland Yard about the commotion at the college, making sure to disguise his voice enough so they wouldn't give him a second glance. It was something Moran had taught him early on in the jobs. Moran liked to play the innocent that found the body, said it gave him a rush. It made John feel sick, but it was necessary. No one could be given the power to take him away from Sherlock. No one could arrest him.

He had been hidden in the shadows through most of the Yard's frittering about; Sherlock had been taken out of the building and given a shock blanket, which he greatly protested. It put a smile on John's face that he reminded himself to get rid of before he walked out. "You're looking for a crack shot, possibly a sniper, with military experience judging by how smoothly and calmly he executed the shot, Also, he was left..." Sherlock's deductions cut off as John walked onto the crime scene.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't come sooner, Sherlock," he fussed, rushing over to him. "I can't catch a cab to save my life, it appears."

"It's alright, John," Sherlock replied softly. The two of them looked the other over as if to make absolute certain he was alright. It comforted John, knowing he was just in time to save his flatmate (target).

The detective from before huffed. "What were you saying about the killer?" he asked. John winced at the word. He couldn't believe he was still sensitive about it after all these years.

"Nothing, nothing. Look at my blanket, see? I'm obviously in shock." Sherlock folded his arms and refused to say anything else. The detective just rolled his eyes and walked back to the other forensic people. "Nice shot," he muttered to John as soon as the unwelcome detective was gone.

"Thank you." John grinned at him and it felt as though everything was back to normal. Then, one of John's least favorite men walked up. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay out of my life!" he said angrily.

Mikey smirked. "I couldn't resist seeing the both of you in action. I must say, it's rather...titillating."

And there he went again with the derisive talk. "I don't care what you find exciting; if it involves us, I'll have to tell you to leave before I get into all your exploits, in _detail,_ with Scotland Yard. You would love that wouldn't you? All your dirty laundry exposed."

But Mikey kept on smirking. It was really pissing John off now. "What about your dirty laundry?"

"It doesn't exist." John smiled too cheerfully. "I have no dirty laundry."

"Why are the two of you having a row in the middle of a crime scene?" Sherlock asked. "He may be annoying, but there's no need for threats, John."

"I believe there is. Do you want me to take care of him?"

Sherlock shook his head. "One cannot dispose of family members, especially mine, that easily."

John did a double take. "How _exactly_ are you two related?"

"Unfortunately, John, this is my older brother, Mycroft." Mikey twirled the handle of his umbrella in amusement. "I had hoped you'd gotten all the kidnapping out of your system."

"I enjoy kidnapping people. It gives me a rush." He winked at John, and John decided he was going to hate this man the rest of his sorry life, whether or not he was Sherlock's brother.

"Anyway," John said over the siblings. He wanted to get out of here. "Dinner?"

"Starving." Sherlock smiled and dropped his shock blanket, following John away from the crime scene.

* * *

"You knew Mikey was Sherlock's brother when we met, didn't you?" John asked Moriarty in the closest alleyway to the flat.

James shrugged. "I know a lot of things about a lot of people."

"It could have blown my cover!" he protested. Moriarty wasn't going to get out of this. If he wanted Sherlock dead, he couldn't screw up John's job like that!

"Mikey will keep quiet just to watch the two of you, see how it goes. I think he has more cameras in the flat than I do." James pouted. "Sneaky bastard, ruining my fun."

"Also ruining my privacy!" Why, oh why did John have to collect genii like most people collected coins?

"I don't think you'd mind if I saw you naked," Moriarty replied quietly, placing his hands on John's waist. Somehow, John's hands ended up behind James' neck. They didn't move from that spot for an unknowable amount of time. It was similar to dancing with James and John, but the dance was of minds and about control. One or the other had to win eventually, and John didn't know whether he'd have the strength to fight.

As he walked home after the meeting, he began to pray.

* * *

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	5. Aftershock

**Since we haven't heard much of Sherlock, this can be considered a sort of interlude. Enjoy!**

* * *

What Sherlock never told John was that the cabbie spoke to him.

Assuming John had any intelligence under his army doctor exterior, Sherlock hoped John would figure out how the cabbie killed people: he convinced them to play a game of chance. The game was simple; there were two bottles, a good one, and a bad one. One person took one bottle, the cabbie took the other, and he managed to win four times. Only five pills started out in each bottle, so Sherlock was meant to be the last one.

But the man said things that Sherlock didn't understand, which was so terribly infuriating, he didn't how to respond.

"You got a fan, you know. He's the one who pointed me to you."

"What sort of fan sponsors a serial killer?"

"What sort of sponsor is your fan?"

Sherlock smirked. "Point."

"He's a big fan of that John Watson fellow, too. _Loves_ him. He talks about him like he talks about you. You'd have thought he'd make up his mind."

That didn't make sense. Why would someone go after John? "How would your sponsor know him?"

The cabbie thought about it. "My sponsor tends to throw his weight around. Maybe he needed Mr. Watson to help him. He is pretty scary, after all."

"I don't believe that. John has a moral code that matches none I've seen. He could never be used as muscle," Sherlock replied, slightly angry the cabbie was too stupid to understand. People underestimated exactly how idiotic they could be. Ugh.

"It doesn't matter. It's you that's going to die tonight." Sherlock huffed, extremely annoyed now. If the cabbie wasn't going to give him any information, what was the point of him being willingly kidnapped? This whole ordeal had to have a purpose, otherwise it was all for naught. John worried about him. Sherlock wanted to avoid that.

With every ounce of his severely depleted patience, Sherlock folded his arms and refused to speak anymore. This man had insanity written all over him, and as the passenger to madness, Sherlock would not believe in it. It didn't matter how smart or talented this man was because Sherlock would always beat men like him. In a battle, he would win. Sherlock had help now, too. He had John. Strange John with his fire and his gun and his chemical explosions inside Sherlock's head.

That was true insanity. Why couldn't the cabbie see it?

When Sherlock met John, he stared. Most of the time, he needed a passing glance to read somebody like a book, to analyze their hopes, fears, ridiculous dreams, etc. etc. It took him a passing glance to look at the mask of John, the things he showed people that they didn't have the care to see. But Sherlock _saw_ John after looking a fair bit harder. Something ate away at him, a ghost, lots of ghosts in fact. Something haunted John Watson and it _pulled,_ it _drew_ him. There was so much pain and so little relief, but he hid it so well. What could be done to a person to make them like that?

He noticed the gun almost instantly: the gun John kept in the bottom of his drawer. Sherlock knew John contemplated using it on himself daily, but he hadn't. He was a fighter, and fighters didn't give up that easily. Sherlock knew that was what John told himself every day. He also understood it was partially a lie.

Fighters only had use when there was fighting to be had. Without the war, John had no fight, and therefore, no reason to be alive.

But if that was the only motivation John had for living, why wasn't he gone? There had to have been another fight to fight, another battle to win. Perhaps John couldn't accept the war was over for him, so he looked for ways to keep going. Illegal ways? _Guilty, guilty, guilty._ Maybe the haunting came from guilt. John had a moral compass that pointed straight north, all of the time. He couldn't deal with being guilty for long.

Maybe the fighting came from within. John could have created his fights and fought them without anyone noticing. Little things, small tidbits, tiny conflicts.

John would never get enough from that. He'd go stir-crazy. _A rocket tearing itself apart on the launch pad._

Sherlock still hadn't figured John out by the time the cabbie gets to the college. It was rather vexing, but then, most people usually were. Up the sets of stairs Sherlock went, willingly, of course. None of this would work unless it was willingly. "How's this?" the cabbie asked, gesturing to the room they were sitting in.

"Fine," Sherlock replied, already bored. Couldn't the man just get on with it?

"This is how the game works." The cabbie pulled out a small bottle with one pill in it.

"Dull," Sherlock sniped. "Is this really what everyone else did? If it is, I'm quite disappointed."

"I haven't even got to the fun part yet. You're so impatient." With a flourish, the other man pulled out a second bottle. Sherlock raised his eyebrow. "You see, Mr. Holmes, it's a choosing game. One is poison, and one is not, like that children's book with the aliens and the genius that defeated the aliens."

"This can't even be called a game! It's a fifty-fifty chance!"

The cabbie smiled. "It's not chance, it's chess. I like looking at people's faces and knowing how they think, and how they think I think, so this is perfect." He slid one of the bottles toward Sherlock. "Did I give you the good bottle or the bad bottle?"

Sherlock cocked his head and looked into the cabbie's movements, his expressions, his oh-so-pretty lies. _Does John lie like this man_?

He began to rattle off deductions, barely stopping for breath, reciting the man's life story as if from a book of poems. Sherlock knew about the man's children, he knew about the death sentence, but what he didn't know was why the cabbie killed people.

"With every person I kill, money goes to my kids." The cabbie fell silent for a moment. "I wonder if that's how he gets Watson to work for him."

"John doesn't have children," Sherlock replied, his voice as hard as iron. "I thought you were going to drop the subject."

"He matters very much to you. The idea that he could be something baser, something less than what you made him into, it hurts you. No, Watson can't be a bad man, because I know he can't be a bad man, and I know everything, that's how you think. Someday, somewhere, someone will knock you off your high horse and you won't be able to get back up because you'll be dead. I hope that happens tonight."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "John would never stoop to your level. You just kill people for money and satisfaction."

"I do, but who's to say that he doesn't do the same?"

"I'm going to go now." Sherlock stood up. "It's been interesting, to say the least." He knew the man's gun was fake, stating it would just be common.

He got halfway to the door when the cabbie spoke again. "Just out of curiosity, did you figure it out? Which one was the bad bottle?"

And wasn't that the simplest way to bring Sherlock back? "Of course I did. It was child's play." So much seemed to be about children, didn't it?

"Come on," the cabbie cajoled lightly. "Play the game." Perhaps it meant Sherlock had a thirst to prove himself. Perhaps it was just a death wish. Did it really matter anyway? John was coming after him, bringing Scotland Yard in a blaze of glory and too many donuts and cups of coffee.

The two pills were at their lips after a great deal of stalling and suspense, but the shot rang out and broke the tension. The cabbie fell over, dead before Sherlock could see who had shot him.

He stood above the man as he laid, bleeding out onto the floor. "Your sponsor, your precious sponsor, who is he?"

The cabbie shook his head. "There is a name nobody says, that everyone fears, and so I'm not going to say it either."

"You may be dying, but I can still hurt you," Sherlock hissed, stepping on the man's bullet wound and pushing down as hard as he could. It didn't matter what he did now. It didn't matter, not anymore. If anyone was coming to hurt John, he had to know.

"MORIARTY!"

* * *

Sherlock wondered where the best place to get dinner was. He had to prove to John that he could tell the best Chinese food restaurants by the bottom two-thirds of the door handle. John would call him amazing, and then everything would go back to normal. They would live together and solve crimes together (well, Sherlock would solve the crimes and John would chase down the criminals) and just _be_ together. Sherlock wanted to know John as more than just a set of deductions. He wanted to know _John._

"I think I didn't tell you one thing," Sherlock said as they walked into the restaurant. He probably should eat now that the case was over.

"And what was that?" John smiled. He always smiled like it was the best day of his life.

"The cabbie had a sponsor, the one who paid him to kill."

"He give you a name?"

"Moriarty," Sherlock answered, quizzically. He hadn't figured out who Moriarty was yet, but hopefully the man was at least a little bit exciting. Hopefully he wasn't like Mycroft with his stupid minions and infernal timing.

But John didn't find Moriarty exciting. He froze.

"John?" Sherlock asked, waving a hand in front of his face. What could have made him like this? Had he just gotten lost in thought? (Sherlock was ignoring the real question, which was Did John know who Moriarty was?)

John shook his head rapidly and looked at Sherlock with fear in his eyes, which Sherlock didn't understand. "What were you saying? I think I lost my train of thought."

"The cabbie's sponsor was a man named Moriarty, and he seemed to think Moriarty had some fixation on you, as if you were his lover or something equally ridiculous."

His partner laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. It had something ugly and scared behind it. "You're right, that is ridiculous. Let's eat."

Sherlock watched John all through dinner, but he was closed off, like the flood of information Sherlock usually noticed had been dammed, or cut off. It didn't make sense, and he hated when things didn't make sense. _Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._ John didn't work for Moriarty, that was impossible. So, John must have known him some other way. Maybe he had been in Afghanistan with John. Maybe one of John's friends had gotten caught up in dealings.

There was a sinking feeling in Sherlock's chest. He hated being confused.

* * *

The two of them managed to get home alright, since Sherlock was the only one that could effectively hail a cab. Tumbling into the flat, high off of the joke they'd shared in the taxi, there was a single moment of tension.

John had his eyes wrapped around Sherlock, but didn't touch him, but Sherlock knew he would. Their hands were almost too close, and their bodies too warm, and their silence too agonizing. Sherlock had to fill it. He couldn't let this go yet.

"So, first case."

"Yeah."

...

...

"Would you like to..."

"Yeah."

* * *

 **I'm pretty sure the last chapter didn't show up on the archives, so hopefully this one will. Anyway, I hope you guys review!**


	6. Landslide

**I can't believe I am still able to write. You would have thought being sick would take energy out of me, and it does, just not enough to keep me from publishing. I think it's good news!**

* * *

 _Last Time:_

 _"So, first case."_

 _"Yeah."_

 _..._

 _..._

 _"Would you like to..."_

 _"Yeah."_

* * *

John bit his lip, watching Sherlock stride towards him. He knew what he wanted, all that mattered right now was that Sherlock wanted the same thing. _Touch me._ _Just do it._ John couldn't take them dancing around each other anymore. How long it lasted, John didn't care, but the tension was too much.

All his muscles were poised to jump.

John had his eyes on Sherlock's eyes, on his curls, on his lips. The air dripped something painfully warm and biting onto their limbs, digging into their skins until the idea of not moving was worse than dying. Each man took a step forward with silent permission from the other. The moment had weight, and passed longer than a moment. But as soon as the moment was gone, both of them realized how short it truly was.

All of the sudden, John and Sherlock were pressed together from ribcages to feet. The scene was a tableau, a freeze frame, and for one split second, John's intake of breath caught, and Sherlock's pupils were huge and dark.

And then, they kissed.

John's hands cupped Sherlock's face, and Sherlock's arms coiled around John's waist, and John had sucked Sherlock's bottom lip into his mouth, and Sherlock gasped, and John would have smiled if he'd remembered how, and Sherlock smiled because he did remember. He opened his eyes slightly, just enough to push John up against the door of the flat, pulling his lip out of John's mouth and proceeding to place small, antagonizing kisses on John's neck and jaw and face, in general.

This dimly frustrated John, so he pushed back on Sherlock and managed to flip their positions. He effectively crowded Sherlock against the door, yanking a breath out of him in retribution. It seemed to John that Sherlock hadn't really been kissed like John was used to, so he took it upon himself to show Sherlock what proper kissing was like.

John almost disconnected his mouth from Sherlock's in an effort to pull his tongue back. He started kissing Sherlock again, but this time, he started slow. It was just the touch of lips on lips for a few seconds, then John tilted his head more, causing Sherlock to make this little sound that _killed_ John's resolve. But he kept going, eventually getting to slip his tongue back into Sherlock's mouth and run it along his teeth. It had been such a long time since he'd cared enough to kiss someone like this, slow and wet and hot and so _damn_ addictive. If he could keep this up for a little while, he might die a happy man. But he wouldn't die a satisfied man. This kind of kissing deserved revisiting.

With a great deal of his restraint lost, John finally let go, using every skill in his arsenal to basically have his way with Sherlock. He knew he was controlling, but Sherlock wasn't in any way complaining. In fact, Sherlock had paid attention during the restraint period, beginning to fight John back, and once the testing was over, Sherlock full-on attacked John, flipping their positions against the door again. And John loved it.

Once Sherlock had John where he wanted him, he pulled back. The two of them kissed leisurely now, like they had all the time in the world. John's hands wandered to Sherlock's chest, fingers tracing his collarbones, his sharp, sharp collarbones that landed just beneath his shoulders. With a short hiccup of a breath, Sherlock fell into John, somehow turning the arrangement into a hug. When their lips detached, neither pair of eyes opened.

John and Sherlock leaned against the door to the flat, their foreheads touching, breathing in uneven puffs of air. Neither man wanted to speak, so neither man did.

After an amount of time, some immeasurable amount of time, John remembered everything, the mission, James, Mikey, the serial killer being paid by James. And so, he pecked Sherlock's mouth softly one more time and walked into the kitchen, putting the teapot on the stove and heating it up. He couldn't look at Sherlock without thinking of his dead body on the ground.

* * *

The days passed after the case ended, but John and Sherlock didn't talk about what had happened. Sometimes, John wondered if Sherlock had simply forgotten, since the night was a little fuzzy even in John's mind. Other times, John knew Sherlock remembered just as well as he did, and thought about it as much as John did.

And John thought about that kiss more than anything else.

In the logical part of his mind, John understood this was supposed to happen. Sherlock was supposed to fall in love with him, and lust headed that off quite a bit. But John hated doing it this way. That kiss was all John had of his real feelings for his gorgeous, eccentric flatmate. Everything after this wasn't supposed to mean anything.

John wanted it to mean something real, which was so stupid he nearly smacked himself in the face the first time he thought it. And every time after that.

But it couldn't. He couldn't just kiss Sherlock without it being part of his plan.

John had to get out of the flat, so he told Sherlock he was going to Tesco. "Why on Earth would you need to go to Tesco?" Sherlock asked.

"I don't know," John replied with a grin, "Do I need not-expired food to live? Do I need milk? Do I need things to live comfortably other than the chemicals you use for experiments?"

Sherlock looked at him questioningly. "Why do you keep answering my question with more questions?"

John laughed, putting on his jacket and opening the door. _He pushed me into this door, and I pushed him too._ "Because I can. I'll be back soon." He knew Sherlock wouldn't care about this, since he sometimes didn't realize John was gone.

Sherlock frowned and didn't answer, putting his hands in praying-pose under his chin and going into his trance state. John shrugged and left the flat, making sure he had its key on the same chain as his dog tags.

It took him a long time to actually get a cab after he stuck a hand out to hail one. Sherlock was always better at that. John checked to make sure he hadn't forgotten his wallet. The drive to Tesco was uneventful, but John took extra caution with the cab driver, keeping an eye on him at all times during the trip. Sherlock being kidnapped had put a healthy respect for cabbies in him.

Of course, the checkout lines in Tesco were ridiculously long.

John walked around the shop aimlessly for a half hour, waiting for some of the people to disperse. He picked up some milk, and those chocolate biscuits Sherlock liked, and a few other dinner items. The aisles were filled with mothers and their hungry children, senior citizens with all the urgency of snails, businessmen buying some things John wouldn't be caught dead buying. Maybe Sherlock was right: maybe all of them were having affairs with their secretaries.

And John couldn't seem to get Sherlock out of his head. That was the exact opposite of what he wanted.

He spotted someone he knew and went over to him. "Lestrade, right?"

The man looked up. "Yeah. You're John Watson, right?"

"Yeah." John paused. "How's work at the Yard?"

"Same as always," Lestrade sighed. "My wife seems to think I have a say in staying at the station late and rushing off when I get a phone call."

"Your job is incredibly important, though," John pointed out. "Somebody's got to catch the criminals. And if your wife doesn't understand why you do your job, you shouldn't have married her." Suddenly realizing how rude that was, John carefully backtracked. "Sorry. I meant that maybe you guys should talk about this."

"We have talked, but she doesn't get it. She never got it. She always wanted me home with the kids or doing mundane things, but I _can't._ "

"I know exactly how that feels," John replied, nodding. "I can't go back to civilian life as easily as everyone's expecting me to. The only one who gets it is Sherlock."

Lestrade gave John a once-over. "When we're done getting groceries, do you want to get a drink at the pub next door?"

* * *

"I screeeeewwwwed up," John slurred two hours later. "I did somethin' I shoun't haf, an' now Sherlock's mad at me. I jus' _know_ it."

"Wha'd you do? It can't be thaaa bad." John blearily wondered if Lestrade had drank as much as him, and then he figured out he didn't care.

"I _kissed_ him. On the mouth, right proper." He took his shot, and then asked for another. The bartender still hadn't stopped giving them drinks.

"Tha's pretty bad." Lestrade laughed. "You think he's into you?"

"I wanna be into him. He's pretty damn sexy," John mumbled.

"You gotta go talk to him. He's one of those truth-telling ones that likes honesty. What're those called?"

John didn't know. "I don' know. But tha's good advice. I'll go talk to him." He stood up fast, which he discovered was really bad for his head, but he steadied himself and continued toward the door, saluting half the bar's patrons. He was going to talk to Sherlock, and he was going to fix this! He was Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and he wasn't going to let a bit of alcohol stop him!

He somehow got into a cab and back to 221B Baker Street, but the how of it all left a big gap in his mind. Whatever, it didn't matter! He was here now! He also had his groceries with him, which he'd nearly forgotten about. Good. It was all good.

"Sherlock!" he called up the stairs. "I'm back here! I brought groceries!"

His flatmate came down the stairs in only his dressing gown and pajama bottoms, noticing instantly how drunk he was. "John, you couldn't have just gone to Tesco and come back without becoming inebriated?"

"Nope." John shook his head. "Not possible."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but John could definitely tell it was affectionate. It was _totally_ affectionate. "Come on. You need to get to bed now."

"Bed. Sounds good. Very good...Good." John got up the steps with a great deal of effort, happy that Sherlock was the one carrying the bags from Tesco.

"I have something to say to you," John said once the flat was quiet again, once Sherlock had stopped moving around in the kitchen.

"Very well." Sherlock folded his arms and looked unimpressed.

"Come closer." John did that weird beckoning finger.

"I am closer."

John rushed up to him and got his face about two centimeters from Sherlock's. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry I kissed you."

Sherlock stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't want to do that until we knew each other really well, but I did it anyway because it felt good without checking with you first to make sure it felt good for you too." John looked at his feet, suddenly feeling all too sober. "You deserve more than the heat of the moment."

Beautiful, brilliant Sherlock smiled mischievously. "If I kissed you right now, would we call it even?"

"You can kiss me any time you want," John replied with a boatload of flirt thrown in.

"Do you mind if I take you up on that?"

"Not at all."

And so, Sherlock kissed John. Maybe it was because of the alcohol, or maybe their previous practice, but it was _so hot._ John couldn't help but get into it with as much dexterity as his drunken mind could allow. His lips moved sloppily sometimes, but Sherlock more than made up for that. Holy Hell. How did his hands get everywhere? John didn't remember Sherlock's hands having this much fun before. Maybe it was...nope, thinking was too hard.

When they broke apart, chests heaving to breathe, John felt all fuzzy. "Can you take me to bed? I wanna go to bed."

Sherlock nodded, taking John's hands and guiding him into a bedroom, John wasn't sure whether it was his or Sherlock's. John nearly fell onto the bed, Sherlock helping to remove his shoes. "Sherlock?"

"Yes, John?"

"I'm going to kill you someday. But I don't want to."

Sherlock didn't even blink. "Goodnight, John. Sweet dreams."

"Won't you stay with me?"

"You need to wake up on your own. It's better for the both of us." And then Sherlock was gone, and the conversation was already fading from John's intoxicated mind.

* * *

When John woke up, he was terribly lonely, and his head hurt really bad. "Why the hell did I do that?" he wondered aloud, quietly, so he wouldn't hurt his head more.

"People drink for all sorts of reasons, Johnny," a sad, Irish voice said next to him. "You're drinking because you're starting to fail."

"Fail what?"

"The mission. And I'm disappointed. I thought you were the best."

"I am the best," John protested.

"Then you have to prove it. You have to make the next move."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll have to make the next move. And honey, you really don't want that."

* * *

 **Please review, guys!**


	7. Laccolith

**Back again! Hope you like this.**

* * *

John made it a general rule to not enter people's personal space unless they gave him permission. And then, he met Sherlock.

Whenever John saw him lounging on the couch, arm thrown carelessly over his face, John wanted to sit so that Sherlock's head was in his lap. Whenever John found him pacing in the sitting room with no cases and a severe case of boredom, he wanted to kiss Sherlock until there was no tomorrow. Whenever Sherlock did _anything_ , John had this strange and not altogether unpleasant urge to touch him. Sometimes it manifested tamely, like a brush of the hands, or a bumping of the shoulders, and most other times, it manifested with a widening of John's pupils and the compulsion to take a cold shower.

In other words, it was pretty much Hell.

He had no idea what Sherlock thought of the kiss they shared a few weeks ago. Honestly, John wondered if he'd scared Sherlock off. His flatmate wasn't known for emotional fluency, nor expressiveness, so John wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Confront him? Stay quiet? Kiss him again?

That last one was a bad plan, but John really wanted to carry it out. _Restrain yourself._

He knew what Moriarty would want him to do. James would tell him to profess his romantic feelings toward Sherlock and ask if he could kiss him again, and when Sherlock agreed, as James thought he would, John would have to go in for the kill, using all his dirty tricks to get into Sherlock's head. John knew that, because James was strategic. He understood how boring, ordinary people thought.

John hated it when James called Sherlock ordinary. He was so far from ordinary that the word had no meaning.

Of course, James tended to be right about strategy. God, John wished he wasn't.

"Sherlock?" he asked, walking into the sitting room, but his friend didn't seem to be in there. He quizzically looked around, not noticing any new experiments going. So where was Sherlock? He couldn't have gone far. There were no new cases, John would have known since they showed up on his blog or Sherlock's email, which he checked regularly. He could have been in his bedroom.

John turned around and headed into Sherlock's room, which he tried to stay out of on principle. The door slightly ajar, John pushed past it, quietly striding into his flatmate's living space. The place was surprisingly tidy, considering the sitting room was covered in mostly Sherlock's paper. A periodic table graced the wall, as did a mirror over the dresser. As John gazed into it, he saw exactly how large his pupils were and how flushed his cheeks were. Damn. He'd hoped to avoid this kind of scene.

The mirror also showed the static figure on the bed, curled up in the sheets only. The comforter laid in a heap on the floor. Sherlock slept, or he looked to be sleeping. John's expression softened at the sight of him. "Sherlock?"

The other man simply rolled toward John, eyes still closed. It was just then that John noticed, much to his embarrassment, that Sherlock probably wasn't wearing anything under the sheet. _Restrain yourself,_ John thought. _He could still wake up and freak out on you._ "Are you awake?" he whispered.

Sherlock squirmed a little, but didn't open his eyes, nor move any more. He did say something though. "John..."

"Yeah, it's me." John moved forward, but didn't sit on the bed or touch Sherlock in any way. It was a self-conscious thing. He didn't want to show his cards before Sherlock showed his. _It's just a strategy,_ James laughed in John's head. _It's not,_ John argued back. His inner James just smirked.

"Come...come here." And what could John do but obey? He crept within a few centimeters of his friend's tired body and sat on the bed next to him. The last thing he wanted to do was overstep his bounds. "No," Sherlock complained blearily, voice doused in drowsiness. He still wasn't fully awake, and John didn't know whether to be happy or not. "With me, John..." His voice, normally so sharp and blunt, had taken on a fuzzy tone that John kind of adored. _Wrong word. Bad John._

Given permission finally, John laid down beside Sherlock, who had only taken up a small portion of the bed. He threw off his jacket first, though. John didn't bother trying to take part of the sheet, Sherlock was very possessive of the article of cloth. "I'm here now," John murmured, running his fingers through Sherlock's curls.

Really, John could stare at Sherlock forever and never get tired of it. He doubted feelings like this could develop this fast (frankly, he had tried denying their existence before), but the second they locked gazes, he couldn't get enough. And damn it, that sounded so teenage-puppy-love it made John sick, but he was starting to run out of ways to say it. Sherlock _fascinated_ him. He loved how Sherlock flourished out of rooms like a superhero, how he still seemed to not understand John's compliments, how childish and yet too old he could be. It drove John crazy, all the new things he noticed every day.

John wondered if Sherlock looked at him like that. It was what James wanted, after all.

And here James was again, poisoning John's thoughts. He closed his eyes and focused all his energy on the sensations Sherlock was pushing his way. Scent, temperature, touch, sound. The quiet was nice. So was the smell of Sherlock's shampoo. Like mint and spice.

For a while, Moriarty was gone from John's mind.

"Oh yeah, I tell you something," John whisper-sang. "I think you'll understand. When I say that something, I wanna hold your hand." Sherlock smiled a little, nudging into John's shoulder. "I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand." Without further prompting, John kissed Sherlock on the forehead. The two of them could lay there a while longer.

* * *

Oddly, John didn't question why Sherlock was sleeping in the middle of the day until much later. He didn't bother checking his watch, instead, he attempted to extricate himself from Sherlock's arms with a small amount of resistance. Sherlock didn't wake up, though. That should have been another warning sign.

John couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Sherlock go to bed, since normally John went to bed far before Sherlock did. He said it interfered with his mental processes, but John didn't believe that. The reason why John didn't sleep was because of his nightmares, so he knew what it looked like. But what would Sherlock be having nightmares about?

He absolutely hated to do this, but he called Mikey (he refused to think of the slimy businessman as Mycroft). He had the man's number in his phone only because Sherlock might need it. Any other use would have been unthinkable.

John dialed the number on the screen and held the phone up to his ear, tapping his foot as he waited for the shady guy to answer. "Hello, John."

"Hey there, Mikey."

He could almost hear the smirk. Between Sherlock, James, and Mikey, he was getting pretty good at it. "I assume you're worried about Sherlock."

"Can't you just look on your cameras to see what's wrong?"

"It's Moriarty's turn to watch the video feed."

"You take it in shifts then?"

"Yes. It's a way to kill two birds with one stone. Now, what is your dilemma?"

John rocked back on his heels. "Why is Sherlock asleep right now?"

Mikey didn't even pause before answering, "He hasn't slept in days. You're his flatmate, you're supposed to notice these things."

"Do you have any idea why Sherlock doesn't want to sleep? I know he doesn't because I've seen it. So why?"

The shrug came through clear enough. "Ask him. I may know the events in his life, but I can't always known how he reacts. He's my brother, which means he can hide things from me."

John growled into the phone. "If you're lying to me..."

Mikey laughed. "So protective of your little pet, your little dog that you're going to put down once Moriarty has had his fun. You're treading in dangerous waters, Dr. Watson."

"Why aren't you more concerned? He's your brother, isn't he?"

"I'm beyond the point of caring if you kill him. What I care about is him taking care of himself."

"That is so narrow-minded," John seethed. He wasn't supposed to be getting angry. He was the cause of strife here, he had no right to...but he already did, didn't he?

"I believe in keeping multiple parties happy. If Moriarty wants to take a swing at Sherlock, he brought it upon himself." Mikey sounded bitter, so terribly bitter.

"You can't honestly think about it that way."

"And how do you think about it, Dr. Watson? What does Sherlock mean to you if you're willing to kill him for money? A roll of cash? A fucking paycheck? Well then, you might as well just kill him now and save him from your whorish side before he finds out on his own." Mikey's voice was ice and knives, and it pissed John off.

"Do you want him to die?"

"I want him to stay in the dark about some of the brutal, ugly parts of life. Betrayal isn't something I want Sherlock to be intimately familiar with." He said the word 'intimately' like it meant sex, and that just pushed John over the edge.

"You have no right to control him or me. If you wish to interfere with either of us, you're going to have to go through me, and believe me when I say that will be a very wonderful day for me." John's tone went dangerously sharp. When John was mad, the soldiers in the army with him used to tell horror stories about his calm. Calm meant bad, bad things for those that got in his ways.

"Oh, my good doctor, I would love to see you try. I have men that can kill you in an instant, from this point right now."

"I can kill you myself without a single sign of something wrong. You'll notice you're dead before you notice I'm in the room with you. I've dealt with so many scary people that you don't even faze me. So I'll tell you again: you're going to have to go through me."

Mikey didn't say anything for a minute. "Ask Sherlock about uni. Maybe he'll tell you why he refuses to sleep."

John sighed. "Finally, something useful. Until next time." He hung up without hearing Mikey's goodbye, wanting to wash his skin of that disgustingly oily voice. The first thing he did was walk into the bathroom, stripping his clothes off easily and stepping into the shower, which he'd heated to a ridiculously hot temperature. He had begun to feel the loss of Sherlock's warmth during his unwanted phone conversation.

The shower spray welcomed John, letting him relax again. Once his whole body was wet, he poured some shampoo into his hands and washed his hair. After the shampoo had rinsed out, he took the soap from its spot on the wall and washed his body. Steam filled the enclosed bathroom like fog filled London most days. Soon the air was mostly water. John hummed to himself as he stalled as long as he could under the showerhead. Beatles songs, all kinds.

He lost so much sensory data that he didn't hear the door to the bathroom opening and someone coming inside. "John?"

John physically made himself not jump in surprise. "Sherlock, you're awake."

"You seem to enjoy threatening Mycroft."

He smiled. "He's a bastard, and I'm just acknowledging it."

Sherlock laughed. "How correct you are. You just sounded angry, that's all. I couldn't hear what made you angry, but I hope you got him back."

John peeked his head out of the shower curtain. Sherlock was wearing only a sheet, standing a meter or so away from him. "Thanks."

What looked like a blush formed on Sherlock's cheeks, but John had no way of knowing whether it was just from the heat of the room or not. "You're welcome."

"I would ask you to come in here with me, but your brother would call back pissed again," John joked, hoping Sherlock saw that it was a joke. Sometimes he didn't understand jokes, he just looked at John funny like he'd just told him the Queen wanted his hand in marriage.

"Mhm," Sherlock answered. "In addition, I'm more in need of a cold shower than a warm one." It was John's turn to blush, even though he thought Sherlock didn't mean it like an innuendo. "I'll have to shower after you."

"Yeah, that's fine." John quickly closed the shower curtain and tried to act natural. Sherlock could probably see his outline through the fabric.

"John?"

"Yeah, Sherlock?"

"Thank you for staying with me."

John poked his head back out of the shower. Sherlock had this strange, enigmatic look on his face that John couldn't interpret. "Anytime."

* * *

Throughout the rest of the day, whenever John looked at his phone, he thought about what Mikey had said before. "What does Sherlock mean to you if you're willing to kill him for money?" And John didn't know the answer. It was killing him.

* * *

 **All chapter titles are volcanic words. Review!**


	8. Hydrogen Sulfide

**Since I hate The Blind Banker, we're going to skip that particular episode. Sorry.**

* * *

The day after he called Mikey, John told himself he'd ask Sherlock why he didn't sleep. It had something to do with uni, which honestly made John feel awful. His nightmares stemmed from a battlefield and deserts, while Sherlock's had to do with...well, university! Someone must have scared him so badly as to sleep with one eye open, or not at all, and that awakened a sense of protectiveness that would be considered sick to any outside individual.

Why would John feel this protective of a target? James would kill him slowly for even thinking it.

John steeled himself and prepared to walk into the darkened room where his friend was performing some sort of experiment involving his floor compared to the floor in the hallway. "Sherlock?"

He barely looked up. "You obviously have something to ask me, so please continue what you were going to say."

How did he know? Never mind, Sherlock knew so many things that John couldn't comprehend. "Your brother told me something that I want to check with you as to its truth value."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "No, I don't know anything about the solar system. Is that it?"

Joh laughed aloud. "So, you don't know that the earth goes around the sun?"

"Why would that matter? People cram their heads with so much useless information, it's a miracle they don't melt into a puddle of ill-conceived sludge. I delete things so I can keep the actually vital information, like how many kinds of tobacco ash there are." It was made clear to John how little Sherlock would budge on this, so he proceeded to ask his real question.

"What was it about uni that makes you unable to sleep?" he asked abruptly, not wanting to stall. John had a penchant for stalling whenever he was in a dangerous or emotionally-straining situation. When he was a kid, his mom and dad would fight all the time, and to keep them from going at each other, he'd have to distract one or both of them until they forgot what they were fighting about. It was almost a defense mechanism nowadays. If a target had a weapon or doubted John was who he said he was (undercover missions were common), John spoke incessantly, being a diversion of his own. James had often told him diverting was one of his best skills. He hated it.

Sherlock finally looked up at him. "My brother told you that?"

"After much persuasion. I was worried about you, otherwise, I never would have asked anything," John placated. He tried to build up some level of trust. In his head, it made perfect sense. In his soul, or what was left of it, he wanted to throw up.

Sherlock stood and took John's hand, pulling him into his bedroom. Both men were barefoot, so John hoped absently that whatever was on the floor was harmless. "Do you really want to know the story?"

"If there's anything I can do, I have to know."

He sighed. "I got into uni very early. I was a child of sixteen in first year courses; learning meant everything to me. Without meaning to, I began passing all the other students in my classes. Mycroft just congratulated me, but he didn't understand that the other students didn't take it as well as he did. As threatened people often do, they lashed out at me.

"It started small. Every few days or so, someone would knock my books out of my hands, push me into walls, little things like that. Then, it became more often, and with the same people. A gang of inferior boys would punch me or bruise me whenever they found me. I got used to it, I fought back with deductions, but it only seemed to make them angrier. One male in particular, Victor Trevor, decided to make me his pet project of sorts. He wanted to know how long it would take him to get me to kill myself. He even told me once."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" John wondered, running his thumb over Sherlock knuckles, realizing he hadn't let his hand go yet. He didn't want to.

"Really, John? Do you think anyone would have believed me? Victor was the captain of the footy team."

"You could have, though." His tone was so soft and sad. James could really pick them.

"It wouldn't have made any difference. Victor was getting worse by himself. Every day, he'd find me, and I'd go back to my dormitory covered in bruises. This went on for months. Finally, in March, I started using cocaine. He thought that was a sign he was getting to me, and so he let up for a few weeks. The day he punched me again, I threw out my last deduction at him, trying so hard to make him leave me alone." Sherlock's voice broke.

"What did he do to you?" John had to keep from rushing out the door with his gun and filling Victor with so many bullets he would have to go back to get ammo before he finished.

"I told him he was actually gay, and he enjoyed torturing people because it turned him on. At that point, I just wanted a moment of shock or something to help me get away, but there wasn't. Victor...he _kissed_ me. He kept kissing me, and since we were alone in the halls, I couldn't yell for anyone. I struggled, I know I did, but it felt so useless. I felt like I wasn't going to be a wall of deduction and strength anymore. I know I thought briefly that I should have just gotten out before." Sherlock paused, and his face became like a rock again, unreadable. "When he was done, he smiled and told me that if I ever came after him, he would kill me."

"You got the police after him, didn't you? Please tell me you did," John begged him.

"My brother has him shoved so far down in the system that it'll take him a long time to get out of prison, but prison was the best Mycroft could do. Victor could get out at any time and find me, and he'll...he'll..." Sherlock dropped John's hand and moved away from him, maybe a meter or more. "So there, I told the sob story. Now leave me alone."

John nodded slowly and put his hands out in front of him in a gesture of surrender. "I'll go if you want me to."

"I do. Just go, John." Sherlock's tone was hard and ugly and John hated it so much. He hated that he had to ask anything, and he hated that he was so powerless. Powerlessness was something John couldn't deal with, not without distraction.

"Okay."

* * *

John left the flat, wandering the streets of London with all the care of a child with its toys. He didn't care that he was getting lost, he didn't care if there was an entire gang behind him. It didn't matter, not compared to how jittery and in need of a kill he was.

Killing people, while a terrible thing morally, helped John blow off steam. As a target bled out on the ground, John imagined the congealing liquid to be his troubles, oozing out and leaving him calm and untouched again. The only thing left after a kill was vague regret, and numbness reaching over a new area of John's body. John _needed_ it, however wrong and twisted it was. The sooner he had a dead body beneath him, the better he would feel.

He yanked his phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed. "James? I need a job. Can you get me the location of Victor Trevor?"

"Is this because of Sherlock?" James giggled. "Don't bother answering that, darling. I know. Yes, I'll get the naughty little boy's location for you."

"Do you mind if I take my time?"

Moriarty smirked. "Never. There's so much scum in this city, you can afford to have a bit of fun with some of them. Just for you, my pet. No one else."

"Thank you," John breathed.

"I can hear how excited you are. You deserve a present for working so hard."

"You are amazing." John didn't even mean to say it, it just slipped out. Compliments came easy when he interacted with mad genii every day.

"Enjoy, dear. Make him scream as much as you want to, I'll cover them up."

"Catch you later," John said, hanging up and checking his text messages as soon as he did. Cell 10A of Pentonville Prison. John smiled grimly. Victor Trevor was going to die, and he was going to savor every moment of it.

* * *

The prison wasn't very well protected. John easily snuck past the security cameras and the guards, some of whom winked at him as he passed. Inside men, he presumed. He couldn't help but be grateful for it right now. All the prisoners except his target were outside, not allowed to go back in until he was finished. Cell 10A housed a brown-haired, average-looking man with smart eyes and a brutishly built frame. This man lived to hurt people, John could see that without Sherlock's story blinding him.

"Hello," John began as he walked in. He wore his scrubs specifically to not get his clothes dirty (and to seem nonthreatening, but mostly the clothes thing). "You are Victor Trevor, yes?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Well, I do."

"Why? I haven't been sick in a while. No illnesses in at least a year, except allergies."

"I want to know if you're Victor Trevor to determine if I've got the right person."

The man snorted. "I'm Vic. What the hell do you want, doc?"

"I thought I would start by carving you up while you screamed. I also want to break a few of your bones before we're done here."

His face lit up in surprise and slight fright for a moment, but John knocked him out before Victor could do much more. John proceeded to tie the man to his bunk, securing the ropes so that he couldn't get away even if he was strong enough to break the ties. _This is for Sherlock,_ he tried to convince himself. _This is for me,_ he conceded, _and for Sherlock. Mostly for Sherlock._

 _You're a filthy liar, John Watson._

"Should I start by breaking your bones, or carving you up? What do you think?" John asked once Victor was awake and could hear him. His vision blurred red dangerously, and John had to remember to take this slowly, and not explode, right here, right now.

"Which one will hurt less?" Victor gasped.

"You're right." John rapidly (brutally) used his fist to break a couple of the man's ribs. "Hurting more now makes me feel better."

"I'm your stress doll, then?" Victor laughed through his pain, chokingly.

"It's a little more than that, but if it helps you sleep at night..." John shrugged. "Wait a minute, that's the opposite of what I want."

"What did I do to piss you off?"

"Remember someone named Sherlock Holmes?"

"The Freak? The one I went to prison for? He was asking for it!" Victor got angry fast, and John thanked his rope-tying skills that the man wasn't going anywhere.

"He has powerful friends, some of which are dangerous, like me." John took out his favorite knife, courtesy of James' collection. Her name was Annie. "Now, let me hear you scream."

* * *

When John was finished, there was almost nothing left of Victor Trevor's face to identify that was indeed him. The adrenaline rush hadn't left John's veins yet, and he was on cloud nine. There was no regret with this kill, no self-hatred. He killed a bad man responsible for hurting Sherlock, and that was inexcusable. No one got to hurt Sherlock. Nobody would take Sherlock from him.

John washed his hands and took a quick shower at the prison before the inmates came back. He couldn't afford for Sherlock to see how much he got into this. The blood dripped from him and into the drain, never to be seen again. No more evidence. John liked it that way.

He thought he might as well go to Tesco while he was out, and so he did. John bought milk, and more of those chocolate biscuits Sherlock liked. He also purchased various cleaning supplies just in case his friend wanted to use the chemicals in an experiment. The grocery bags ended up full, and he went on home to the flat without any other stops, trying to make it seem normal and not out of the ordinary.

As John entered the front door, he called up the stairs, "Sherlock, I bought a few things." Sherlock didn't answer, so John shrugged and headed up the steps.

"I said, John can you pass me a pen?" Sherlock looked over at him like he'd been waiting impatiently ever since John left, and it punched a hole in his calm state of mind. Sherlock wanted him here. John was hoping Sherlock hadn't wanted him to move out.

"Yeah, here." John pulled a pen out of his pocket and managed to give it to his friend without dropping any of the groceries. "I'll just put this away, then." He went in the kitchen and began dispensing food items in their proper places, not pausing until Sherlock spoke.

"You didn't just go to Tesco. You smell like blood and metal, and bad hospital soap. You don't have a job at any hospital, so you went to another establishment with a need for disinfectant. You showered, then. It's all over you. Public shower? No, you have one here, and also, your soap doesn't smell like that. More likely a necessity shower in a dirty place where you..." Sherlock trailed off. "John, what did you do?"

"You told me a story, Sherlock. The villain of that story was in Pentonville Prison. I did what I had to do to keep you safe." His voice was soft, and he meant it. He would do anything to keep Sherlock safe at this point. Safe from everyone but him.

"He's dead. You know for certain that he's dead?" Sherlock was breathing hard, and he wildly looked at John for confirmation.

"Victor Trevor is dead. He can't hurt you anymore." John had to rush forward and catch Sherlock in his arms, because his friend nearly collapsed right where he was sitting. "Shh, Sherlock. It's alright now. He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, and I'm here."

Sherlock curled into John like he was a teddy bear, cradling him just as much as John was cradling Sherlock. Oddly enough, this had more impact on John's mind than torturing and killing Victor. It was as if a semi truck had crashed into him.

Was this what love did to people? If so, James had been orchestrating John's death as well as Sherlock's.

* * *

 **Is Dark!John scaring anybody else? I'm worried this story has surpassed a T-rating, but let me know. Pleas review, guys!**


	9. Obsidian

**Well, I couldn't just let some of the Blind Banker moments go to waste. So here we go.**

* * *

John had always known it was bad to lend someone a credit card, but this was just ridiculous.

Sherlock and John's coworker from the surgery he found a job at were tied to chairs in a shady part of town. Why? This case was supposed to be some smugglers and an easy arrest, but apparently these smugglers had decided to kidnap his flatmate because they thought Sherlock was him. How was that even possible? Well, yeah, Sherlock had stolen John's newly usable credit card to buy illicit things from a shop in the East End, and yes, when he and Sherlock were having a row, Sherlock shouted, "I'm John Watson, who has no qualms about protecting people and letting the bad guys get away!", and yes, Sherlock had bought circus tickets under his name, but seriously? John and Sherlock looked nothing alike! If those Chinese mafia members or whatever had wanted him, the least they could have done was check they had the right guy!

Shoddy workmanship, John huffed to himself as he quietly snuck into the tunnel where Sherlock and Sarah were being kept. "Can we have a volunteer from the audience? Ah, thank you, lady."

"I'm not John Watson, what on earth have I been telling you this whole time?" Sherlock interjected, but John could tell he was actually scared that Sarah would be killed. John didn't know why; it wasn't like Sherlock thought that much of him, after all. They hadn't known each other that long.

"The death-defying act, that if completed, will shock and thrill all in attendance!" the Chinese woman said, and Sarah sobbed. John was unaffected. What was wrong with him? He heard the sandbag being slit, he heard the sand pour out, his senses tingled as they could understand how slowly the weight lowered into the bowl. He could _feel_ it. And Sherlock was next, he knew.

"I am not him! You've got the wrong man!" Sherlock shouted, and John knew the moment was now.

"You really should have listened to him," John said coolly, stepping out of the shadows and shooting the first two men he saw. Only three more, hardly a challenge. The next few seconds were chaos, but it all moved so slow for him. Another man rushed toward the machine thing that was going to shoot Sarah, but John took care of that easily. The other two were focused on him and Sherlock, respectively. The one coming after John did so with a sword, well, John understood quite a bit about swords having served in Afghanistan. Swords could be fun. He dodged a few swipes, sneaking a peek at how Sherlock was doing with his opponent. Of course, his assailant used that opportunity to slice John's arm. "Son of a bitch!" John swore, plainly shooting him in the face.

The one after Sherlock had it in his head that strangling was the way to go. John ran over, not even thinking about the woman with the gun in her hand. In fact, he didn't even notice her until later. His stupid, fucking mistake. Sherlock managed to get the man off of him without any help, and he'd knocked the man out with a punch to the temple. But the woman, she had a gun to the back of Sherlock's head.

"Lay down your arm, or I will shoot him, John Watson." Her accent pissed him off, he thought dully through the red in his vision. He had to kill someone. Someone was going to hurt Sherlock, he had to kill them. Obligation. He had to.

"Don't you know the plans for this one, General Shan?" John only used this tone of voice in the assassin business. "The boss has big plans for him, and if you kill him, there will be Hell to pay. Do you know how he does Hell, my dear woman?" He stepped forward, gun still out. Nobody was taking his weapon. "He does it slow, and then he makes you beg. You plead with him to let you die, but he just laughs at you. Do you know how his laugh sounds when it's the only sound in your head for days? Weeks? Enough to drive you mad."

"What experience do you have with him?" Shan asked, the gun slackening just slightly in her grip.

John laughed long and hard before pulling the trigger once more, one more bullet out of his Sig Sauer and into the dead bodies. Another day on the job.

He immediately moved away from General Shan and toward Sherlock, who looked out of breath and had marks around his neck. _Mine. He had no right to touch what's mine._ "Are you alright, Sherlock?"

Sherlock wouldn't look at him, avoiding his eyes, and John realized this when the red haze clouding his vision was gone. "I'm fine. Check on Sarah."

John had completely forgotten about her. He rushed over to her side, where she was sitting on the ground with this blank look on her face. "Sarah?" he asked, but she didn't hear him. Shock, maybe. Compartmentalizing so that she didn't have to deal with what she just saw. Civilians didn't belong here. London was just one more battlefield, and no one was equipped to deal with that. Not even John. He'd broken long ago. He'd become addicted instead of shocked.

"We should probably get her to a hospital, get her checked out. There's only so much I can do here," John told Sherlock, but he didn't turn around to answer John.

"Yes. I called Lestrade discretely while you were occupied with...her." He didn't know which 'her' but it didn't matter. The problem with this situation was how little John could read Sherlock with his back turned and his eyes averted.

But John knew how most thought when they saw this side of him. He _sickened_ people, why would Sherlock be any different? This had gone beyond life-saving, he'd killed when he could have knocked them out like Sherlock did. Dead bodies were more reassuring to John, because they couldn't get up anymore. Their stories were finished, and often that meant they could cause no more harm. _You didn't have to kill them, John_.

"I'm going to stop somewhere before I go back to the flat, Sherlock," he said, already walking away. Sherlock probably didn't want to see his face for a while. Simple. Not so simple when one looked at it in detail, however.

* * *

John knew where Moriarty would be. "Johnny, you killed a great deal of valuable clients. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"James," John replied quietly. "May I just sit for a while?"

Oddly, James let him. The two men sat in silence for a long time. John's time perception was always off after a kill, waiting for the adrenaline to drain from his body, so he didn't know how long. "I know why you're here, John, and it isn't to say sorry," James said, just as quiet as John had been, and he sounded too serious, and it would have scared John had he been able to be scared at the time.

"Enlighten me, my genius," John answered softly. Sometimes James understood what others didn't, because he was old inside, John knew that. James was centuries old, and these were merely games to him. He hadn't cared about anybody in ages, and John knew that as well. James read John because he could, and because John knew he was old inside. They had an understanding.

"You're afraid, just like they all are. Sherlock will hate you because you killed those people, those people that would have taken him from you, and you'd have become a mad creature like me. You're afraid that now that he's aware of who you really are, he'll hate you, maybe put you down himself."

"'I knew you while you were in your mother's womb, and I loved you'," John quoted to Moriarty. "Something or other. If God met me, he wouldn't love me." He laughed, even though he always laughed at the wrong times, just like James.

"God doesn't have to love you. John, you have it incorrect." James turned to John and looked him in the eyes. Dark eyes, he had. "I was a Catholic too, once. They told us the only way to Heaven was through forgiveness by a priest, and I replied the priest didn't have to forgive me, God did. But he never came down to forgive me, so I figure, hey. Maybe it isn't his opinion that matters."

"Sherlock's does." John said it before he could shut himself up.

"And when you kill him, it won't anymore," James countered. "No one has the authority to judge your urges, your dirty secrets, your truths and your lies, your love. Especially not Sherlock Holmes."

"What if I want him to?" His reply was whispered so softly, he wasn't sure James had caught.

"You'll be chained to him. You'll be chained to what he wants, what he needs. Eventually, if he realizes the full extent of who you are, he'll use those chains to choke you. You don't deserve that, John." James sounded strangely earnest, but John's adrenaline rush had passed, and he hadn't the energy to care.

"We don't even deserve Hell."

* * *

He wasn't quiet coming up the stairs and into the flat; he wanted Sherlock to know he was coming. John was done hiding, at least, done hiding the little things. His mission was a big thing, and not something he was prepared to face. The door was ajar, and John wondered if Sherlock simply didn't care that someone could come in and rob them at any point. He probably didn't. It would be great fun for him.

"Sherlock?" he called, hanging up his jacket on the coat-hanger by the door. He knew Sherlock would come out from just that word. Curiosity never sat well with him.

His flatmate (a little early to be calling him a friend) strode into the room wearing an open dressing gown and pajama pants, nothing else. He had a habit of doing that, and it drove John insane, in an entirely sexy way. "What do you want? The case is over, solved, done. Boring."

"Can I tell you something?"

"If I just deduced it, it would save time."

"But I want to tell you, face-to-face, no deductions. Can you at least give me that?"

Sherlock ran his fiery, cutting gaze over John like the day they met, and John knew. He just knew Sherlock wasn't listening to him. _Just like James said._ Nope, not going there. "Fine."

John patted Sherlock's chair, and he reluctantly sat down. John himself sat in what he liked to think of as 'his chair', and leaned toward Sherlock. He had to make this right. He had to fix this, because...because he couldn't do it without Sherlock, not anymore.

"Since just before I joined the army, there has been this cliff. It's not dangerous, not to me, but it ends up dangerous for other people. The cliff is simple: if I jump off of it, I lose control of myself and end up in a kill-or-be-killed situation. I do most of the killing. No one's gotten me yet." He laughed once, sadly. "The first time I jumped, it was going into the army with a bit of training and a trigger-happy finger. The next, I killed my first person, a kid barely sixteen years old, carrying a hand grenade, ready to launch. I did what I had to do to save people.

"The war never ended for me, not really. Get me shot, send me home, it doesn't change anything. Every time I felt that cliff, jumping meant killing myself, ridding myself of this misery. But you, Sherlock Holmes, you found me.

"It wasn't just about me anymore, I had someone to protect. You pulled me back from the edge of the cliff at the same time you pushed me forward. Kill for me, you said. Kill for me, keep me safe, hurt those that would touch me. They don't deserve to." John sighed. "If someone comes close to you with ill intent, I don't even think. My gun is out and my bullet's left the magazine before I can pull myself back from the edge of the cliff and _I'm sorry._ I'm sorry I'm weak enough to reach for the trigger whenever you're hurt. I'm sorry you have to see me like this."

John stood up and gave Sherlock one look. Just one look. "You didn't know what you were signing up for, and I apologize for that. If you want me to go, I'll go. I practically worship every word that comes out of your mouth anyway." He turned around and began walking to his bedroom up more steps. Sherlock didn't have to follow him. It didn't matter to John. He'd find some other way to fulfill the mission, or he could just get it over with. James wouldn't be too angry with him. Sherlock wouldn't be angry if John left now.

All of the sudden, as he closed the bedroom door behind him, he wasn't alone.

"You're a very stupid man, John Watson, if you think something as inconsequential as that would cause me to evict you."

"Really?" John asked, a bit breathlessly. "How stupid?"

"As stupid as this, of course. Don't be obvious." Sherlock pulled John's shoulder back until they were facing each other, and kissed him, hard and briefly. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, you have a not-bandaged, possibly infected cut on your arm to deal with."

"You have a bruised neck, at worst, windpipe to deal with."

"Do you want to deal with them right now?"

"How about no." And John pulled Sherlock into him again, pretending like that cliff wasn't looming under his feet and one wrong move would pitch them both over the edge.

* * *

 **Pretty please review!**


	10. Subduction

**My little project is ten chapters already!**

* * *

"First you get hurt, then you feel sorry." -Cold War Kids, 'First'

* * *

One thing John learned in the army was that if someone received a certain amount of pain from another person, they found it easier to inflict that amount of pain on somebody else. Vicious circles were neverending; the pain went around and around, and it didn't stop. Pain simply changed hands, changed wounds, changed faces. At one point, John had experienced so much hurt that he could kill people without feeling remorse. But, it wasn't just James' fault. Fault changed just like pain did.

* * *

 _You're not right for the army; that's what everyone told him. At twenty-eight he should be planning to start a career, find a wife, move to a suburb and become a GP. But John doesn't want that. As soon as he finished his lightning-speed medical degree and doctorate, he signed up for the army because he wants to do some good in the world. Diagnosing runny noses and the flu won't help anyone in the grand scheme of things, in a sheltered place where nothing is life-or-death. On that battlefield, John will_ save _people. He'll be the reason someone is walking around, the reason someone else gets to live another day. He wants that._

 _When John gets the call, he runs down the stairs to tell his older sister, Harry. "They said I ship out in two weeks. I'll be home for Christmases and whenever else I have leave, don't worry about it."_

 _Harry folds her arms. She isn't always the sanest-minded one, her drinking still bothers John, though he won't remind her of it, but he trusts her opinion. Harry's his big sister, after all. "I'm more worried if you don't come home in one piece."_

 _"I will. I promise I won't die on the field."_

 _Harry doesn't laugh, but he knows she would. "You can't promise me that."_

 _"I thought that's what you wanted."_

 _"I don't want anything. This is all your decision."_

 _"Fine, then I promise to not die on the field." John smiles almost jokingly, but he entirely means it. He'll find a way, even if he gets shot or partially blown up or tortured, to keep fighting. No matter what._

* * *

 _When he gets off the plane to Afghanistan, he meets a lot of other recruits, young and naïve and he knows he's just like them, but John can't see it yet. "Alright, greenies this way," a gruff voice says to John's left. He follows the voice, because he has to. John essentially sold his life away to obey orders, but it's not so bad. He just has to think about the lives he'll save, and nothing else seems to matter._

 _"You went through boot camp in your regular training program, but this isn't Britain anymore. This is a place that will eat you up and spit you back out half-digested. You have to be able to fight the area as well as the targets. Am I clear?"_

 _"Sir, yes sir," a resounding chorus of men's voices shout._

 _"Good." The commanding man nods his head. "My name is Major Sholto. I am to be addressed as Major. Keep a sharp eye about as we go to the camp."_

 _Of course, shortly after that, John will get a gun. He'll beat the hell out of most of the other recruits, and they'll respect him, even though he's a doctor, and not there to shoot people really. He's a fucking good marksman, though._

* * *

 _The years pass. John doesn't notice; the desert takes most meaning out of time. Days are too hot, nights are cold, the natives either are suspicious or have a gun to someone's head. His comrades become his various strange brothers. Sometimes, when John's on leave and there's no one to care, he sleeps with as many people as he can get his hands on. It makes sense somewhere in his head. Having sex is a form of intimacy that he doesn't get in the army unless he's desperate and one of the other men is willing. Maybe it's because he feels like a part of him is missing in Britain, maybe he hasn't shot enough people to feel satisfied. Perhaps John needed something else._

 _Finding things in Afghanistan isn't easy._

 _"Watson! You've got a letter!" Murray shouts, waving it in his hand. John runs up to him and takes the paper envelope, ripping it open eagerly. Harry is supposed to tell him how it's going with that woman she met online, Clara. She seemed nice when John met her a few months ago. Hopefully she stays with Harry. It takes a lot to put up with her and love her, John knows that, but Clara and Harry would work so well._

 _Upon reading the letter, John cheers inwardly, knowing that if he cheered outwardly, the guys would crowd around him and ask if the letter was from a lady friend. Does his sister even count? Harry practically glows with happiness as she writes to him, explaining how wonderful Clara really is._

 _John has to take this with a grain of salt, knowing three different continents worth of one-night stands isn't enough for him._

 _No, stop. He must be happy for Harry right now._

 _Well, he can use his 'happy' feelings at the shooting range again. His Sig Sauer seems to warm in his hand as John walks to the brightly-colored targets. He hits each body in the center, where the heart is, and a few other choice places that would kill anybody. The practice isn't enough though. Why is this so angering to him? He should be more excited, more supportive. What he feels right now is wrong._

You're terribly lonely, that's all _, he thinks to himself._ There's nothing wrong with you. _Of course, John was always good at lying, at hiding things from people. John rarely shows how he truly feels because he has to be the perfect man, the one with the best moral code, the ideal son, the soldier that would follow his commander off a cliff. He's just a man. John is a man with faults and stupid wishes._

 _His fault is how far gone he can go before he pulls back. His stupid wish is to be just like everybody else._

* * *

 _John hates it when there's a person, an honest-to-God, too-young, too-naïve, too-strong person on the slab in front of him, waiting, hoping to be saved, but John can't save him._

 _Like the eighteen-year-old boy named James with blood flooding out of his blown-off leg. There's too much of it. John can't staunch the blood fast enough to keep the boy from bleeding out, and so, he doesn't. John just stops._

 _"Do you know what heaven's like?" James asks softly, knowing the look on John's face before he has to say anything._

 _John shakes his head. "I haven't had personal experience, but from what I've heard, you'll never be in pain again, and the angels and your loved ones will be with you forever."_

 _The boy smiles, a bare quirk of his lips. His dark hair flops over his eyes, so John can't tell if they're open or not. "You deserve to go there someday for helping me."_

 _"But I couldn't. I couldn't save you," John chokes out. This isn't the first one he's lost, so why does it hurt so much more?_

 _"Some things aren't meant to be saved." James tries to shrug, but doesn't manage it. "I'm okay now."_

 _"No, you're not," John starts to say, but the line on the heart monitor is flat and unmoving, and James' eyes are closed._

* * *

 _His comrades can tell from the look in John's eyes that something is horribly off with him, but no one says anything because they're scared to. It's like John is dead inside, dead and buried with only the shell of him to make believe that he's still with them._

 _War messes people up, but it doesn't normally show until they have to go home. Survival instincts that alienate the soldiers from the civilians are too important here to care whether it's normal to grab a gun when a loud noise is heard. John used to be an example of someone well-adjusted, but even the most well-adjusted person has a threshold. That's what was taught about torture: at some point, the pain gets to be too much. Eventually, there won't be enough of the person to salvage. Not everyone can be saved, and it's the entirely not-simple matter of making peace with that._

 _John doesn't look at all peaceful._

 _"Give me a mission," he tells the major. "I need a mission, I need something to keep me from going crazy in here."_

 _Over the years, Major Sholto has become friends with John and doesn't reprimand him anymore for speaking to him that way. "Are you sure? Off-shore leave is what you most likely need right now."_

 _"I can't do it. Just let me have a mission."_

 _Sholto nods, but in his head, he's screaming that this is a very bad idea. "Fine."_

* * *

 _It isn't supposed to be a comfort that no one knows about James, so no one can comfort John about it. He doesn't want comfort; John wants to maim and shoot and kill the person (the demon) that would hurt someone like James, who shouldn't have even been dragged into this. War isn't glory, and whomever threw that IED did it knowing that's how the boy thought. It can't be forgiven._

 _John had never understood divine wrath before, but he does now._

 _He has to punish someone for his and James' pain._

 _The village is too quiet, but John is past the point of caring. Dying would be nothing if he kills as many of these sons of bitches as he can. He creeps through the small streets and between even smaller houses, barely reading the graffiti on the walls. The night chills him to the bone, but he didn't think to bring his jacket. Marked houses are the ones with terrorist cells; John remembered burying his mark within the propaganda. He could just walk into any one of them._

 _Eenie, meenie, minie, mo. John nearly laughs under his breath, but someone could hear him._

 _Fine; the one on his far right looks ripe. He recalls the people he spied on in that house. They have a daughter they beat until she died, and a son that beat his wife. The parents have a stash of IEDs in the basement. James would have been easy prey for them, and he hates it._

 _John barely thinks before kicking the door open and running inside, gun perhaps literally blazing, a haze of red coating his vision. He notices bodies on the ground, but which bodies? He doesn't know. There's shot after shot and the sound of blood leaking out on the floor but it's his, isn't it? Or maybe it's theirs. Maybe there's no blood at all, but John can't see anything anymore. All that's left is quiet, because he stopped shooting. Why? Where is he again?_

 _Where did he go?_

 _Hello, operator. Can you patch me in to John Watson?_

 _He can't come to the phone right now. Would you like to leave a message?_

* * *

 _When John wakes up, he's tied to a cot or a bed or something. Hands and feet, good knots. Someone knows what they're doing. A man stands in front of him, with another man standing off to the side in the shadows. "Oh, lookie here. Johnny boy's awake!" he says, laughing a little. "What do you say, Farid? Do you wanna start on him?"_

 _The man closest to John nods and pulls out a knife. It's a simple knife, not too fancy. John begs his inner mind not to say anything, not to scream or cry or shout out. Whatever pain he goes through is nothing. He won't die like this._

 _Several long cuts later, John allows himself to scream._

 _A few burns later, he begins to cry._

 _The man in the shadows, Irish by the sound of his accent, leaves the room first. Farid stays behind for a while longer, finding new ways to make John wish he had never been born, but John refuses to give in. This is nothing, he desperately murmurs to himself once Farid has gone for the night, throwing a bit of food and water at him. This is nothing._

 _But it isn't._

 _Even John can't stay strong forever. The cuts turn into scars, and more cuts cover the scars after a while or so. The Shadow Man wants to fix him, and Farid hurts him again anew. Burns, cuts, those were just the beginning. Sometimes, he can't even remember what has been done to him because his body hurts too much. Going unconscious is a relief, better than sleep could ever be. Time, just like in the army, has no meaning here. But he can never be free of this, not when the evidence maps his body like highways over Britain._

 _Once, he wakes up again, and only the Shadow Man is in the room. He looks...sad, if the man can even feel that way. "Why...?" John croaks. "Why...s...sad?"_

 _The Shadow Man steps out of the shadows for the first time since John's been here and he says, "That boy, James, my namesake, he broke you. None of this torture has done anything nearly as devastating as that boy did to you. Nothing Farid has done has pulled you under, you're still alive and fighting and darling, that's amazing. But I figured it out. I figured out what he did to you."_

 _How do you know, John wants to ask. How do you know anything? "You're a Catholic boy, born and raised on the ideas of Heaven and goodness and redemption. You believed that everyone could be saved, if only they just had remorse and forgiveness and penance. Even the people that died on that slab in your tent were alright because they were going to Heaven for helping their country. But James was different. He told you that some things weren't meant to be saved, and although I've known he was right for a long time, you didn't. You still thought everyone could be fixed, but now, you don't, do you? If you can't fix it, no one can, so you've taken it into your own hands to smite the wicked, bury the dead, watch that soul of yours disappear, but it's alright, because you saved those people the only way you could: by killing them."_

 _John has tears running down his cheeks and he's not so sure they're from his wounds. "Get...me...out."_

 _"Oh, of course!" The Shadow Man, the new James really, runs up to him and unties his bonds, helping him off the bed/cot/thing. "I never wanted this, you know. I never wanted them to hurt you."_

 _"You...failed."_

 _James laughs, but it sounds wrong. "I always fail where it matters; I'm too changeable."_

 _"Leave...here?"_

 _And James helps him to a car outside the darkened compound, and they leave that place forever._

* * *

It came full circle, as things often do. The source of his pain became the source of John's salvation, which became the source of his pain. Around and around it goes.

* * *

 **Tell me what you think. Review!**


	11. Volatiles

**This is me in a hotel writing this chapter for you guys. You're welcome.**

* * *

He didn't remember how long the two of them kissed. It could have been hours, or minutes, or perhaps days. John had no sense of time, but that was far too common around Sherlock. Who knew, maybe the blue-eyed genius had relations with Kronos at one point. The god of time.

However long the two of them went on, John woke up in his own bed, alone, like the night before simply hadn't happened.

And John was tired of waking up alone. Nothing made him feel more unlovable. Like anyone would want to share a bed with a murderer, especially a target. James would laugh at him to think that, but James was a laugher in general. He enjoyed smiling at giggling at others' expense, but James rarely laughed at John, more because of him. John wondered if James ever meant to make fun of him. He never seemed to, but John knew it wouldn't last.

Soon enough, John would make a terrible mistake, and James would hurt him.

John stretched and pushed back the covers, standing up and walking to the door.

 _Sherlock had his hands on either side of John's face and his torso pressed against John's torso, and John felt so complete, so in tune with everything he'd been missing, all those little things that had been taken away from him as the years went on. Their eyes were closed, but John could still subconsciously see things around him. Sherlock's hands were shaking, and his eyelashes fluttered. John wanted to kiss him harder, but he already was kissing him too hard. He needed this. He needed someone to pretend just for a little while to care about him, to hold him and tell him he was more than what he was even though it was a lie._

 _John could have inhaled the lies like secondhand smoke from the detective's mouth._

 _"Sherlock," John whispered as the other man pulled away. "Sherlock, please."_

 _But Sherlock shook his head and let go of John's jaw, sliding his long index finger along John's cheekbone. "You don't really want me."_

 _"Do you really think that?" John asked quietly, considering he was the one in the wrong. He killed people; Sherlock was so innocent that John couldn't stand to taint him sometimes. The real question was if Sherlock really wanted John. He was the one walking away right now. "Can you even tell me that without knowing my answer?"_

 _Sherlock didn't reply, and John wanted to strangle him here and now. Of course, this terribly stubborn, amazing man before him would be the one person John couldn't kill. "Go to sleep, Sherlock. In your own room, away from me. Just go, and save me and yourself the trouble."_

Apparently, Sherlock had gone after that, because John didn't recall anything after that. He knew well enough that Sherlock wouldn't talk about it; they never did. It probably wasn't healthy, but nothing about the two of them was. Killer and victim, falling into each other's arms. Wrong and right, who knew really? Not even James cared anymore.

John dressed slowly and took step after step carefully down the stairs. He didn't want to interrupt whatever conversation was going on down there between Sherlock and DI Lestrade, it seemed. Since when did Detective Inspectors come to people's flats for tea? Lestrade surely had better things to do.

He caught a few snatches of the discussion as he hid behind the door. "Someone planted a pink phone in an envelope addressed to me. This phone isn't the same one, it is a very good copy."

"I thought it was the same one form 'A Study in Pink'." John thought he heard the shrug.

"You read John's blog?" The derisive eyebrow raise and smirk was on Sherlock's face, John knew.

"Lots of us at the Yard read John's blog. It's quite exciting and interesting."

"Also known as romanticized and exaggerated," Sherlock said back, in that dismissive tone he used on Anderson. "I don't understand why he'd do such a foolish thing."

"Not all of us can be as smart as you, Sherlock." Lestrade sighed. "Besides, have you seen the way he talks about you, like you're the only person in the world? I think he's..."

"No, don't even say it," Sherlock cut off. "He doesn't feel that way about me. It's just foolish description, that's all. There's nothing there between us. I don't even think we qualify as friends yet."

John frowned, so much that he could feel the lines in his forehead. Why did Sherlock have to make this so hard? He knocked on the door to the main part of the flat, knowing that he wouldn't be welcome otherwise. Sometimes, he felt like he didn't live here; John was an uninvited guest that Sherlock wanted to leave. Just a traveler, just passing through. No home, not with Sherlock.

Sherlock didn't feel anything for him.

"Come in," he said, and John did, grabbing his cane.

"So, what do you have for us, Lestrade?" John asked, sounding a bit peeved, but not really caring how he sounded.

"A phone from your first case. Not the same phone, but it came from someone who knows the case."

"That could be anybody out of the thousand people who read it. Can you be a little more specific?"

Sherlock gave him a quizzical look, but John glared back. He wasn't in the mood for this. "I think it might be this fan of mine, Moriarty. He reads _your_ blog after all for my cases. He seems unhinged enough to do that."

"What the hell do you have against my blog?" John snapped at him. Sherlock looked surprised. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I just want to know if the phone rings."

And just then, the phone began to ring. _Unknown caller_ flashed up on the screen, and Sherlock answered it.

"Hello...sexy." It was a woman's voice, and she was crying.

"Who is this?" Sherlock wondered. "Why are you calling me that?"

"I'm...the one...writing. And this...stupid bitch is reading it out."

"What do you want me to do to set her free?"

"You have...twelve hours to solve my puzzle. Tell John...he should really call me. Wink." The woman's voice cut off, and Sherlock slowly put the phone down.

"John, it seems you have an admirer," Sherlock said quietly.

"Hm," John replied sarcastically. "I've never had one of those in London. I feel flattered." Dammit, he deserved to be pissy. Yes, he was being more of a brat than Sherlock, but who cared?

Sherlock cocked his head, subdued. "Are you okay, John?" Wait, what? Since when did Sherlock ask things like that?

"Not really. So, what did Moriarty send you?" John wanted to drop it.

Sherlock turned the phone screen to the best angle. "I've seen this place before," he remarked, staring at the dingy flat with a single pair of shoes in the middle. John definitely recognized those shoes.

 _James smiled softly at John, motioning to the shoes on the pedestal. "This is all I have left of my school years. Everything else is gone now."_

 _"Are they yours?"_

 _He shook his head. "No. They're the favorite shoes of my childhood bully. He hated me so much and hurt me so much, and so I had to kill him. I didn't know what killing people was like back then. I was only a child. However, that didn't last long. Now, these are all I have left of that person, that person that still believed people could be good."_

 _"Why did you take the shoes?"_

 _James laughed. "Carl Powers stole a few pairs of my shoes. I thought it fit payment."_

 _John walked around the pedestal, watching James' face carefully. "Why are you showing me these now?"_

 _"I killed him nineteen years ago today. It's like a funeral every time."_

Only now, James had killed Carl Powers twenty years ago. God, John felt old. But also, this was one of the days of the year in which James beat and battered and shot and tortured as many people as possible. If John had ever seen James sad, it was always today.

"I think that's 221C. How would he have gotten the key to that?" John asked, trying to cover up his silence.

"Moriarty has his ways. He probably snuck in while Mrs. Hudson was on her 'herbal soothers'," Sherlock sniped, running down the stairs and banging on their housekeeper's door. The kindly woman answered him with scarcely a complaint, which was more than John could say since he'd woken up. Soon the basement flat was unlocked, and sure enough, the shoes were just sitting in the middle fo the floor. John wondered how much strength it took James to give those to Sherlock, knowing the shoes would be picked at and prodded and chemically tested. There'd be nothing left of them when Sherlock was done.

* * *

Once Sherlock was over at St. Barts, John skipped out on the lab work and headed down the street to where James had arranged a meeting the other day. And John knew this was a hard day for him. But it was always difficult when he wanted to be around James more than Sherlock.

"Hello, John!" James said cheerfully. "You wanna see a picture of my newest bestie? I carved him up all pretty for you! Plus, he's a boring accountant too!"

John didn't say anything, but walked straight up to James and put his arms around him. Moriarty immediately fell silent, curling up into John. "I'm sorry, James."

"I wanted to give the shoes up, it wasn't good for me to dwell." But James didn't protest John's statement. They both knew who was right. "Your day hasn't been ideal either. Sherlock is a stubborn bastard, isn't he?"

"I don't understand him, James. He changes his mind and changes it back, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do to make him happy," John complained quietly, still holding the other man.

"Sherlock has been special for a while, John. That's why I chose you."

The corners of John's mouth turned down as he hugged James tighter. He needed someone to hold, just this once. He could go back to Sherlock and confront him, but after this. Right now, John felt wanted, useful. Somebody knew him better than anyone else, and that somebody wasn't Sherlock Holmes, no matter how much John wanted it to be. James wouldn't judge him or prosecute him for his sins, he wasn't an avenging angel like John's blue-eyed man. James was a man, flawed and wrong and beautiful anyway. Sherlock was almost too good to be true.

"I need to go back to him," John whispered.

James nodded into John's shoulder. "I know you do. Try not to kill him too early."

John laughed, happily for the first time in what felt like weeks. "I won't. Are you going to be alright?"

"Yep. You don't have to worry about me."

"Yes, I do, James."

* * *

When John came home, Sherlock was entirely focused on Carl's shoes. John shrugged off his jacket and walked up directly behind him.

"John, I'm working. I only have nine more hours to solve this case."

"I'm willing to bet I can interrupt you for a few minutes."

Sherlock glared at him. "What do you want?"

John glared back. "I want to know why you seem to like me, and then you just throw me out like last week's newspaper. I can't tell whether I've lost my appeal, like I used to be new and interesting, and now I'm old and dull, like you've figured me out, or you didn't like what you saw when you looked at me. I don't care which one it is, not really, because both of them will make me feel stupid and unworthy, but I want to know. I have a right to know why some days I can kiss you, and other days, you treat me as if I'm a dog, trained to come when you call and save your life."

And in reply to that little speech, Sherlock simply stepped forward into John's personal space, putting his hands on John's shoulders. He didn't move, just let the genius shift his fingers back and forth over his collarbone. Why did Sherlock have to distract him every time John wanted to be mad at him?

"You've met someone tonight, someone who left the smell of their cologne on you. You're very finicky about your space, so this was someone you knew well. You've been meeting with him quite a lot as long as I've known you, so a friend then. But you're a loner by nature, so who could have gotten that far in?"

"You did," John remarked softly. "I guess I like specific sorts of people."

"What kinds?"

"The ones that know me without me telling them anything."

Sherlock's brow furrowed as he looked at John. "You think you're worthless. You think that I could never feel anything for you. You think I'm disgusted by you."

"What did I just say?"

"How can you think these things?"

"You've never told me otherwise and I can't read people like you can."

"I just didn't want to get too attached. You might leave me," Sherlock said, finally being truthful.

"I fell off that cliff long ago, Sherlock. There's no going back, not for me." John pressed a kiss to Sherlock's wrinkled forehead and slipped out from under his hands. "Goodnight. I'll see you tomorrow morning, if you want me to."

"I do."

* * *

 **Reviews would be so lovely.**


	12. Tsunami

**The last chapter was more filler, so hopefully this one has some action.**

* * *

John shook his head as he tossed and turned, trying to fall asleep. He knew that somewhere in the flat, more likely St. Bart's, his flatmate (still unclear about the proper title) was analyzing that damn pair of shoes with those damn eyes of his. The funny thing was that John knew Carl Powers' whole story.

 _"Tell me about him," John said to the man sitting next to him._

 _James shrugged, and continued sharpening his knife, Cassandra. "It was a long time ago, Johnny. Let bygones be bygones, will you?"_

 _"You never let anything go if you can help it," John countered, a little smile gracing his face. James should have known by now that John was very good at getting what he wanted. He'd had a very good teacher._

 _"Fine then, if you're_ so _interested." James smiled back, and John felt reassured. The other man looked wrong without a smile. "When I was in primary school, Carl was the biggest boy around, and since my family didn't have any money and I was smarter than everybody else, he began to bully me. I skipped a few grades, here and there, so I always ended up in class with him. He beat me a lot, not more than my parents, though. I still thought if he'd just go away that I'd get better, stop having thoughts like what he'd look like as bruised and bloody as I was. What would Carl look like foaming at the mouth, screaming, crying? It frightened me, until I just gave in one day. Carl went to a swim meet in Brighton and I knew everything about him, so I put poison in his eczema medication and watched him die. I felt better, so I did it more and more."_

 _"He's the reason for all this?"_

 _James smirked. "Dear Carl Powers was my reason for eliminating bullies and letting other people eliminate their bullies. No one deserves what I went through. What I'm doing is simply revenge."_

If James' game was revenge, that what did Sherlock do to him? Why did James want Sherlock dead? The reasons were always complicated, and never a straight answer, but if James had given him such a simple, destructive plan, there had to be a serious vendetta involved.

What if John didn't kill Sherlock in the first place? Wouldn't James just kill him then? Why was John involved to this extent if James would take this much satisfaction in seeing Sherlock dead?

Of course, there were more questions than answers. James rarely made sense until the end of the story.

John shook his head again and turned onto his back, sliding his hand under the pillow to finger the trigger of his gun. This was dangerous, more so than usual. He had to be careful.

* * *

When John woke up again, someone was sitting on his bed. He grabbed his gun, pointing it at the figure. "John, it's just me," the person said slowly.

"Identify yourself," John replied coldly. "Name, occupation, relation to me."

The figure rolled their eyes. "John, this is taking your PTSD a little too far."

"Name, occupation, relation to me." John cocked the pistol and gripped it tighter.

"Alright. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and..." the man cut off.

"What is your relation to me?" John asked, scary quiet, enunciating each syllable clearly. "Don't doubt that I will shoot you if you don't tell me what I need to know."

"I...I..." The man huffed in frustration. "I don't know."

"You're here in my bedroom and you know my name, so you must know me. How?" John shot at the floor very close to the man's foot. The sound crackled through the sleeping city like a bolt of lightning and it seemed to startle the man, as well.

"You and I share a flat," the man started, speaking very quickly. "We solve cases together and you've saved my life multiple times. We've also kissed a bit, but neither one of us is in a relationship. I don't know what to call you, John."

John peered into the darkness for a few seconds and it suddenly dawned on him. "Oh my God, Sherlock, I am so sorry."

"It's just your PTSD. People like me coming into your room at night must have been a trigger and so you automatically reacted the way you would have in the army." Sherlock moved further into the light. "It's perfectly alright."

"No, it's not. I would have shot you. I would have killed you without a second thought, you know that. I would have hurt you," John began to mumble, speaking almost too fast for Sherlock to understand. "I would have shot you right here and now, and no one would find out until it was too late. I would have lost you and not even known."

Sherlock shook his head. "You wouldn't have. You are unable to kill me."

And John's face went carefully blank before he pulled Sherlock into his arms and nearly squished him. He felt so ashamed that he could have lost control like that, that it happened with the one person he couldn't bring himself to hurt. How could he even say that if he was so willing to fill Sherlock with bullets? It made him sick. "I would have done it, I would have done it," John chanted, his voice muffled by Sherlock's shirt and warm skin. He barely noticed when Sherlock's shirt became damp with saltwater tears. John wasn't supposed to cry anymore; it never solved anything. But Sherlock just _let_ him leave fluids all over the other man. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Sherlock ran his fingers through John's hair comfortingly. "There's nothing to be sorry for. Now, since you're always pestering me about getting sleep, don't you think that's what you should be doing right now?"

John nodded a little, tightening his arms around Sherlock. "Yeah. Sleep sounds good."

His flatmate (still really unclear on the title) pushed back John's covers and somehow situated the two of them underneath. "Goodnight, John." This time, when John fell asleep, he felt safe. Sherlock wanted him safe.

* * *

John only knew Sherlock had gotten a new case from James in the morning. He'd posted the results of Carl's shoes on his Science of Deduction blog, and had gotten another phone call from a man this time. The picture was of a car covered in blood, but John thought there was something wrong with the picture. The blood was spread all strange, and not in any pattern from any of the murders John had ever seen, and he'd seen too many.

"The blood doesn't look right," John murmured to Sherlock when the Yard had found the car. "It's spread all funny, and the amount of blood is too neat for it to be real."

Sherlock nodded. "I agree. We need to talk to the 'widow'." The other man had actually done the finger quotes around the word, and John laughed aloud, making Sherlock smile. John really liked Sherlock's smile, the one he was using now. That conspiratorial smile that meant John knew his inside joke and wasn't to tell anybody. It would be their little secret. It exhilarated John to have a secret with Sherlock.

Sherlock, being the massive drama queen he tended to be, faked waterworks with the widow, who insisted he was wrong about everything. The other man walked back from there with a smart-people-are-supreme smirk on his face. "People love to contradict you. She doesn't really look like a grieving wife, does she?"

"You read my mind," John replied, a similar smirk on his face. This was how he wanted things to be all the time. It wasn't awkward or painful to be around Sherlock, and the two of them worked so perfectly in sync that no one could tell they'd known each other for a couple months at most. He had missed that in the years working for James, because everyone was either scared of him, or Moran. And he wanted nothing to do with Moran.

The place the car was from was called Janus Cars, which John thought terribly suspicious. Why on earth would a business call themselves after the two-faced god? That practically screamed unreliability. Sherlock did his unorthodox interrogation and managed to get the shady man at the front desk to open his wallet. Of course, John generally couldn't follow his train of thought, but he trusted Sherlock. That man would be able to solve any crime James put in front of him.

Hopefully not John's crimes, though. John liked to think he'd gotten good enough to never be caught.

"He had a 10,000 Colombian peso note in his wallet," Sherlock told John on the way out. "That combined with the arm scratching and vacation means he went to Colombia, but what for? People normally don't go to all that trouble. The wife wasn't grieving, meaning her husband is still alive..."

"The whole thing was a set-up," John finished triumphantly. Sherlock smiled at him again, and butterflies seemed to flutter around his stomach.

"This man, Moriarty, he seems very interested in you." He looked at the ground when he said this, and John couldn't figure out why.

"Moriarty's probably just interested in me because I'm your sidekick. He's just obsessed," John answered Sherlock, grabbing one of the detective's hands. "Come on, he's going to give us another case soon."

* * *

It turned out, the next case had to do with the recent death of Connie Prince, whom John only knew through watching way too much daytime telly. Why did channels always have to play their worst shows during the day, not being at all considerate to the unemployed or retired or plain stupid? John liked _good television_ , and if he couldn't watch it, he'd simply ditch cable like every other sane person using Netflix and the BBC for everything. Take that, capitalism!

It just proved how much he needed to be away from cable that he just ranted about it. Horrifying.

The Connie Prince case was fairly boring, since John had actually been a part of the orchestration. He'd delivered a lot of Botox shots in his time, and being an actual doctor, he could get away with quite a lot. But the next case John had no idea what had happened.

A man washed up on the banks of the Thames, 24 hours gone, died of strangulation, worked someplace recognizable. That was what John saw. But then, Sherlock started deducing. He knew all sorts of things John would have never noticed, including his job, place of work, motive for killing, and killer. Sherlock probably noticed John staring so blatantly at him, but John really didn't care. He was constantly struck by how amazing and how brilliant Sherlock was. It hit him every day, but hit harder right now.

"We need to go to the museum." Sherlock turned to John expectantly.

"Can we stop somewhere first?" John didn't wait for an answer; he tugged Sherlock by the sleeve to the nearest building they could hide behind and pushed him against it.

"I marvel at how insistent you can be," Sherlock breathed.

"Just wait." John kissed him.

* * *

After stopping at the museum and failing to get anything out of the curator, Sherlock pouted. John tried to get him to cheer up by mentioning the human head in the fridge, but Sherlock wouldn't cooperate.

But when Sherlock caught the eye of the woman standing next to the flat, he smiled. "Got a pack of smokes?" she asked.

"I'll do you one better," Sherlock replied, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and ten pounds. In the pack of cigarettes, John noticed as she walked away, was a piece of paper.

"What did you give her?"

"I asked the location of the Golem. The homeless network is very useful for finding people, because they go everywhere, even places that most people won't go." Sherlock swished his coat and began walking the opposite way, John running after him. "We'll have our answer in a little while."

The two of them went off to eat dinner at Angelo's while they waited. Sherlock and John sat directly across from each other, and John pulled out Sherlock's chair for him.

"You're being very date-like," Sherlock remarked.

John blushed. "I am not."

"You held the door for me, pulled out my chair, sat across from me, and haven't let go of my hand." Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. "I don't see how that isn't date behavior."

John shook his head rapidly. "It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be." He felt so embarrassed that he'd treated Sherlock like that without his permission. He was being a typical man, too forward and not thinking with his brain.

"I want it to be." Sherlock smiled softly. "I've never been on a date before, and you're the only one that is remotely close to that stage with me. You're the only one I'd feel comfortable with."

"I'm flattered. Thank you, Sherlock."

"Now, you should probably start bothering me into ordering something."

John smiled back. "Yes, I should."

* * *

By the time John and Sherlock had stumbled out of the restaurant, laughing their fool heads off, they were about thisfar apart. The two man had gotten steadily closer over the night, not worrying nearly as much as they should have about the people covered in Semtex, not worrying about the cameras nor the people watching, because this moment was theirs. Not James nor Mikey nor even the bloody Queen of England could take this from them.

"I have the strangest urge to kiss you right now," John said, not quietly. He didn't care if anybody heard him, which was novel in and of itself.

"Really? How should we deal with this strange urge of yours?" Sherlock asked back, the grin not having left his face.

"Probably by facing it head on." John went up on his toes and kissed Sherlock with a smacking sound, pulling back quickly.

"Is that all you have, John Watson? I expected more of you." Sherlock's funny-colored eyes were going all fuzzy with the contact between their bodies.

"You want more, then?"

"Yes, I believe I do."

But John didn't kiss him again, because the woman Sherlock had given the money and cigarettes to was back. "Here you are, sir. Payment for helping an old girl out."

Sherlock nodded and shook her outstretched hand. When he withdrew, a small bit of wallpaper was in between his fingers. He showed the paper to John, who blanched as soon as he read it.

 _The Arches are where you'll find the Golem. But be careful, he's being employed by the Apostles._

* * *

 **That whole rant about daytime telly and cable was my own, not John's. You can ignore that whole bit if you want. Please review this chapter!**


	13. Nuée Ardente

**Big stuff this chapter. Enjoy!**

* * *

Sherlock had found something strange about the final case in the list (the five pips on the phone, one for each case). John thought it had something to do with the guy on the tracks having his head bashed in, or maybe it was about the composition of the ground, or maybe it was some other thing John had missed, but John missed a lot of things that Sherlock noticed. It was one of the many (many) things John lo- _liked_ about him.

The case with the security guard on the bank of Thames was quickly solved, and John tried to ignore the Apostles mentions. That was one of the decisions he'd made that would disgust him for a while. Soon, he'd lose another part of his soul and forget that, so he should be able to get through this.

They traipsed to St. Bart's with their hands clasped together, swinging back and forth. John discovered he liked holding hands in public. It gave off the impression that Sherlock was his, but not only that, it kept the two of them close to each other, and John wanted to stay that way. Sherlock didn't seem to mind, so John enjoyed it as much as possible, memorizing the smooth texture of Sherlock's palm, the brush of his fingers, the body heat he gave off, the iridescent glow in his eyes. That look in Sherlock's eyes made John want to do incredibly wonderful, dirty things to him, but also never let go of him. How did people let go of Sherlock? Maybe John was a little biased, but he honestly didn't know.

Sherlock pulled John by the hand to the lab door, inside of which was a pretty young woman, standing over a body. "Molly, I need your autopsy results," Sherlock said bluntly.

She smiled slightly, trying to be polite, John could see that. "I have them right here." She, Molly, handed the files to him while Sherlock looked the body over. He quirked his eyebrows a few times and barely touched the files, but John knew there was magic happening in that beautiful brain of his.

"Hello, I don't believe we've met," John said, turning to Molly. "Dr. John Watson. I'm his...something or other." He held out his hand and Molly shook it.

"Molly Hooper. I'm a forensic pathologist."

"Oh." John nodded in understanding. "You're the one he gets the body parts from then?"

Molly blushed. "I'm certainly not going to use them, and he's very persuasive."

"Yeah, he gets like that sometimes." John laughed. "How long have you known him?"

"About as long as he's done cases with the Yard. I've been working here five years, so..." She shrugged. "How long have you known him?"

"Not long," John replied, thinking for a moment. "Wow, only about three months. Time flies."

"Three months, and he's treating you like that?" Molly motioned with her head to the detective on the other side of the room.

"Like what?" John didn't have any idea what she was talking about. Sure, Sherlock had taken to him like a house on fire, but Sherlock could get whatever he wanted as fast as he liked. Much like James, John reminded himself. John just thought it was how Sherlock was.

"He's never acted like this around anybody. He hates his brother, he barely tolerates Lestrade and I, I won't even mention Anderson and Donovan, and everyone else is boring to him. What is so special about you?" There was a slight knife of jealousy in her voice, but John didn't even hear it, too busy pondering the implications of what she said. Damn, that sentence sounded very Sherlock-like. He was different?

On one hand, John felt like jumping up and running over to Sherlock and kissing him until the sun exploded, but on the other, this was exactly what James wanted. James somehow knew John and Sherlock would be attracted (and definitely more on John's side) to each other, and wanted to use that against them, which was terribly cruel, but it was James, after all. He did things that only made sense to him.

"I don't know," John answered truthfully. "I don't know why he chose me, but I'm not going to question it too much. It would be like jinxing the whole thing." He smiled very softly, watching Sherlock come back to them.

"I was right! You missed the scar of a cross on his shoulder. You must have thought it was a tattoo, because in your report I don't see any such markings. That mark is the sign of the Apostles, isn't it?" Sherlock was speaking a mile a minute, and yet, John understood him.

"I think so, it seems like an apostle thing to do, but I don't know anything about a group called the Apostles," Molly replied, shaking her head slightly. John felt kind of bad for her, now that he saw the signs. Molly had a thing for Sherlock, too.

Sherlock paced restlessly for a minute. "How have I not heard of the gang before? It must have been created fairly recently."

"Sorry," a very familiar voice said, "Am I interrupting?"

Molly instead of John turned in recognition. "Jim, hi! I was just about to come downstairs." The way she looked at him, the way she looked at James made John feel funny, wrong-funny, not hilarious-funny. What on earth was he doing here, and with Molly, a girl he could have walked all over?

"No, it's alright." James, wearing a white t-shirt and low-slung jeans, glanced over to John and Sherlock, eyes barely flicking across John's form before settling on Sherlock's. "And who might you be?"

"Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes." Molly looked so proud that Sherlock and her devoted boyfriend (or that was what John assumed James was supposed to be) were meeting. It made John want to shoot her right between the eyes. She had no right to take them from him. No right at all.

"Pleasure to meet you," James greeted, holding out his hand for Sherlock to shake, but Sherlock didn't take it, he didn't even look up from the microscope he was so suddenly interested in. That gesture of rudeness made John oddly feel better. "Anyway, what were you saying about the Apostles?"

"They're a new gang involved in the murders I'm solving. I dislike not knowing things." Sherlock was completely freezing James out, and John didn't know whether to run and hide from the energy in the room, or to eat it up.

"I can tell you all about the Apostles. They've been around for about two years, and have only now come to London." James didn't wink at John when he said this, but John knew he was thinking about it.

Sherlock finally looked up from his microscope and folded his hands under his chin. "Ooh, tell me more," he snarked.

James nodded, pretending to ignore the jab. John prayed James wouldn't give him too much information. Sherlock could pick apart what people said like butchers picked apart their animals for slaughter. "There are three main leaders of the gang, Peter, James, and John. Those probably aren't their real names, they're titles or something. Peter, known as the first Pope in the Bible, works with the underlings and new guys in the gang, bringing people in and arranging payment. James, one of the sons of Zebedee and in the Messiah's inner circle, is the highest up the chain of command. He gives orders, and punishes the worst offenders." Yes, yes, John knew this story. He himself had spread the story when the gang had first started. "And John, the brother to James, is known as the Beloved, because he was the favorite of Jesus in the Bible." But John didn't know this part. "He is an assassin, the only real assassin, and James gives him the jobs as well as others, but John is special in that if anyone tries to go after him, all the Apostles will gladly jump to his defense. You mess with Peter, he kills you, you mess with James, he tortures and kills you, but if you mess with John..." James shuddered.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "So, there's an entire gang based off of the actual Apostles of Christ in the Bible? I thought someone would have done that by now. Boring."

James shrugged cautiously. He was playing the part so well, John noticed. "I guess they're really Christian? Maybe Catholic? I heard the stories like everybody."

That was the wrong thing to say. "If an insignificant, gay IT engineer hears the story of this gang, but I don't, there is something else going on," Sherlock snapped. "Leave with Molly. I need to think."

James just took Molly's hand comfortingly and gently guided her out the door, sputtering and clearly upset. "What was that, Sherlock? He gave you valuable information, you could have been nicer to him," John chided. "A thank you would have been far more appropriate."

Standing up abruptly, Sherlock went straight up to John and kissed him. "Ah, there. Now I can think." He sat back down without fanfare, as if he hadn't moved at all.

"Kissing me helps you think?" John asked, face going a little red.

"Don't let it go to your head," Sherlock replied without looking at him.

"Oh, I definitely will." John smirked. "Now, are you considering all the evidence?"

Sherlock nodded. "I am. But I may need a bit more head-clearing."

Oddly enough, the James incidence was put out of John's head for the next few hours.

* * *

It turned out, the Apostles had been going after a flash-drive with missile plans on them, and killed the wrong guy. Another body had been found later, the one that actually had the plans. Sherlock thought it was all over, and so John took his hand and led him back to the flat, smiling. They'd solved all the cases, and James should have been leaving them alone now. He could concentrate on figuring out what this strange, amazing thing was with Sherlock. He wanted everything, but he didn't know how fast.

John began to make tea as soon as they got inside, fiddling with the kettle and water, waiting for Sherlock to finish whatever he was posting on his Science of Deduction blog. It was probably just about the Bruce-Partington plans. James checked Sherlock's blog religiously, so he would see it soon enough. "Sherlock, the tea's done," John called.

Sherlock came over and took his tea, brushing his lips against John's forehead as he went to sit down. "Are you going to make the terribly domestic scenes a habit?" John asked teasingly.

"I rather like them," Sherlock replied, a smile sneaking across his face. "Not normally my type, but I can appreciate domesticity."

"I thought you hated domestic people."

"I hate domestic _people._ You are not included in that number."

John smiled brightly. "So, I'm special, then?"

"Is it necessary for me to say it all the time?"

"Nope. I just like to know." John set his tea down on the coffee table and laid his head in Sherlock's lap. "It's nice to know I'm not just another ordinary person, stupid and broken. It's nice that I mean something to you."

Sherlock ran a hand through John's hair. "You, ordinary? The planets would fall out of the sky." His voice rang with tenderness, and it kind of made John's heart melt.

"Hm." John leaned up to press a kiss to Sherlock's cheek. "You're very special as well, although I'm fairly certain you know that."

"I just like to hear you say it."

At that very nice, quiet moment, John's phone rang. John tensed, and then relaxed when he saw who it was. "I'm so sorry, I have to take this." He slid the bar at the bottom of the screen, not moving from his very comfortable position. "Hey, mate! How's the cat doing?" It was an agreed upon phrase in case someone was listening on the other end.

John could hear James smirk. "The cat's doing pretty well, but he won't let me pet him. You think you can come over and help me?"

"I'm kind of in the middle of something." John glared at the phone, then mouthed, 'Stupid cat' to Sherlock. Sherlock laughed silently.

"Seriously! The cat is whining and crying and it never does that around you. Can you come do some damage control?"

John sighed, long and deep. "You need to train the damn cat without my help. Just this once, mind you! After this, I will happily pay for a trainer!"

"Yes! Thank you so much, John! I'll make it up to you, I promise!" James hung up, and John knew where to go.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry, but my friend's cat is being a whiny little brat. Much like you without food."

Sherlock pouted. "I am not a whiny brat."

"You're my whiny little brat." John sat up slowly and kissed Sherlock languidly. "I have to go."

"Fine." Sherlock reluctantly let him go, and John smirked.

"And I thought I was being too clingy."

* * *

James had lied to him. The code words said John had to meet him at the alley on the other side of London, but he hadn't shown up. "Bastard," John muttered. "I'm going to get him for this."

He paced a bit in the alleyway, but no one showed up until fifteen minutes later, in a black car unlike the blue and red ones James liked. "James Moriarty, you had better have a good explanation for this," John sniped, feeling like an exasperated older brother.

The people in the car stepped out, but none of them were James. "Alright, what the hell is going-" One of the men jabbed a needle in his neck, and John tried his best to fight the sedative off, but he couldn't for very long. His last thought was if they were going to go after Sherlock.

...

When John woke up, he had an earpiece in his right ear and Semtex covering his body. "Johnny, you have to play along, or I'll be forced to kill you. I don't want to, believe me, but if you say anything, it might give the game away."

"Moriarty." He knew the person speaking wasn't his James. This was the businessman, Moriarty. And John was just another part of the business.

"Don't say anything except what I tell you to. Nod if you understand." John nodded, carefully rearranging his face into something resembling blankness. "Good boy. Time to go out."

John numbly walked forward and opened the only door he could see. He didn't bother looking anywhere, he knew where he was. This was the pool Carl died in. James had toured the place over a year ago, John by his side. He'd been feeling sad lately, and he thought it a delightful lark to take John to the place he'd killed his first person. It came in handy now. John knew where all the exits were, and where James would have stationed all the snipers. He liked a lightshow.

And to his right, Sherlock had a flash-drive in his hand, the one John had held nearly all day. "Well, this is a turn-up, isn't it?" John asked, following the whispers in his ears.

"John," Sherlock said, shock coloring his immovable voice. John knew what was running through his head. Him and Moriarty, were they the same all along? Did John say those things to get into my head? Was he lying the whole time? He wanted to scream that he was completely innocent, but that wouldn't be the truth, would it?

"You never saw this coming, did you?" And Sherlock's face fell so far, John thought it went straight down into the floor. "What would you like me to make him say next?" But Sherlock's face hardened again, this time in anger. When Sherlock was truly angry, he would rival James in revenge.

"Let him go," he said, seething.

"Ah, no. He's too much fun, especially the part with him being your special someone."

"Use your own voice." Sherlock began shouting. "Come out and face me, you coward!"

James laughed from the northwest corner of the pool. "Someone's a little too uptight, what do you think, John?" John didn't answer; he knew how Moriarty's games worked. He had to play along, or not play at all.

"Who are you?" Sherlock asked.

"Is that a Browning L9A1 in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

He pulled out the gun and pointed it at the door James was going to come out of. "The former. Come out right now. I am not in the mood for games."

"You liked my games when you and Johnny boy were playing earlier. Why such a poor sport?"

"Much like the Beloved, if you try and hurt him, I will do everything in my power to destroy you." Sherlock's voice cut through the air as slivers of ice as sharp as metal filings. If only Sherlock knew he was guarding the real Beloved. John saw the irony and almost choked on a laugh.

"I'm Shiva, not you, dear. I'm the Destroyer in this town, you'd best remember that." James opened his door and walked across the threshold, stepping into the light. "Jim Moriarty. Hi!"

James strolled coolly right behind John, putting a hand on his shoulder. John shivered away from that hand, because however much this man sounded like James and looked like James, this man was Moriarty, the killer, the pain expert, the psychopath. This wasn't the man that had pulled John out of torture and needed to be held on the anniversary of Carl's murder. He had to tell himself this wasn't his James. "You can talk now, Johnny." John didn't speak. He just looked at Sherlock.

He and Sherlock were a few meters away from each other, and James was closest to him. If Sherlock let a shot off, all the snipers would kill him. If John tried to incapacitate James, the snipers would leave Sherlock alone, and John would only get a 'scolding' when this was over. None of the snipers covered the exit John had come in from, so Sherlock could escape that way. He just had to stall the two men for a little while, and get James to forget about the snipers.

So, John reached behind him lightning-quick and managed to rearrange his and James' positions, placing the other man in a very painful hold. "Sherlock, run!" John shouted. And of course, Sherlock, being the entirely stupid, bullheaded man that he was, didn't move a muscle.

"Ooh! Feisty!" James laughed hysterically, partially brought on by pain, John knew. He'd had this hold used against him enough times to know that. "But if you have your secret weapon, I have mine!" All the sniper lights pointed at Sherlock.

John immediately let go, and some of the lights transferred to his chest. "There we go. Fewer eggs in one basket, that way." James shrugged, turning his gaze toward John now. Nothing in his expression gave away whether anyone would be leaving the room alive. That scared John; it scared him because James could do anything with people that made him angry, and John's armhold/Spock pinch had pissed him off. That also meant he could do anything to Sherlock, regardless of the mission or John's feelings. Losing Sherlock now would kill John. It would be like stabbing a lance through his heart and just leaving it there until he died.

Sherlock and John glanced at each other for one moment, and Sherlock's eyes softened. His whole face relaxed, changed from the ugly, angry, stiff mask it had been into the visage John knew like the back of his hand. He was beautiful. "I can see your heart, Sherly dear," James sing-songed. "It's so very hidden away, but I can just barely see it."

"And what does it tell you? I have been reliably informed that I don't have one." John could have smiled as he heard that. Everybody knew that was a lie, didn't they?

"You love very little, but when you do, it encompasses your entire world. Loss of that love would burn you up inside." James looked sad for a second, but it flashed across his face so fast only John could have caught it. "I deserve that honor. I will burn the heart out of you, and once I'm done, you'll beg me to kill you."

James did an abrupt 180, and walked back to the door he came in from. "See you later, boys. You might see my Apostles first, but that's alright too. I can't have all the fun. Well, actually, I can!" When he left, the sniper lights turned off.

John and Sherlock didn't move for a few minutes after James left, making sure he was really gone, but once they were sure, Sherlock ran to him, yanking off John's Semtex vest and throwing it as far away as he could. He wrapped his arms around John and pressed him close, the gun in his back pocket. John could reach back and feel it.

"He didn't hurt you?" Sherlock asked quietly, desperately.

John shook his head against Sherlock's shoulder. "He didn't hurt me."

"If he'd have hurt you-" Sherlock broke off. "If he'd have harmed a _hair_ on your head..."

"I know," John said. "I know."

The two of them didn't let go until the police sirens sounded through the echoing pool ceiling.

* * *

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	14. Biotite

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* * *

The two of them slept in Sherlock's bed that night. Neither could bear not knowing where the other was at any given time. Sherlock had to make sure no one had kidnapped John, strapping another bomb on him and actually detonating it. John had to make certain no one came in the dark to take him away and kill Sherlock in recompense for his stupid, stupid feelings towards him. James could have used everything he saw against them both, but he didn't. John and Sherlock had to stay together to stop being so scared.

"Sherlock," John said softly as they entered the flat. "We can't tell Mrs. Hudson about this. You know how she worries."

"That would be for the best." Sherlock pressed a light kiss on John's forehead. "Come on, you can make us some tea before we go to sleep."

Even a disaster like the one they had nearly experienced wouldn't stop Sherlock from shirking tea-making duties onto John. It make John smile, but only a corners-of-the-mouth-turning-up smile, not a real one.

He walked into the kitchen slowly, grabbing the kettle and filling it with water from the sink before setting it back on the stove. While the water heated, John reached up to select two Earl Gray teabags. He was too short considering where the tea was, on the very top shelf. John huffed and reached up a little higher, but Sherlock gently moved his hand aside and found the tea for him. "Here you are," he muttered, turning back to the newspaper on the counter. Sherlock wouldn't look at John, and it cut another hole in his heart. He thought they were past the whole lack of eye contact thing. What had he done? Sherlock never told him, he just had to deduce it.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Sherlock, look at me." John put his hand over Sherlock's, brushing his thumb over the other man's knuckles. He'd always found the gesture comforting. Maybe not everyone did, but John thought that was what Sherlock needed right now. If John felt scared that he'd be taken again and blown up, Sherlock would be feeling terrified that John would be ripped away from him. Or at least, that was how John would feel if their roles were switched. He'd be devastated if someone took Sherlock. In fact, devastated wouldn't even cover it.

Sherlock finally looked up from the paper, locking his eyes with John's. His polychromatic irises glittered with something...something painful. John could barely stand to see him like this. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked lightly, but his light tone felt wrong given the circumstances.

There was a slight pause before Sherlock answered. "I can't explain what's going on in my head. That's not right, John. I'm supposed to understand every single thought that runs through my mind, logically and with common sense. But right now..."

"Tell me." John intertwined their fingers and kissed the underside of Sherlock's wrist. "It doesn't have to make sense."

Sherlock took a few short breaths, like he was hyperventilating, but it stopped quickly. "Every time I look at you, I focus on certain things. I see your eyes, and your mouth, and your scars, and your face when you're shooting, and I don't really see it. I see this _warmth_ around you whenever you smile at me, and I see the way you look at me, like I'm special and amazing, and I don't understand it at all. When you're angry, you're never angry at me, you're angry because people hurt me. When you're happy, your whole body glows, and I want to suck all of that light into a syringe and shoot it into my veins so that I can be part of you. I want _you_ , and that emotion, that incredibly rare sentiment is systematically destroying my mind palace. It's burning books and flooding the rooms, and I can't stop it." His breathlessness came back at the end. "I can't _stop._ "

John did what he had to do. He kissed Sherlock directly on his lips, stealing his words from him, stealing his newly-returned breath. John wanted to take everything from him. He wanted to take and take and take until he and Sherlock were two people in the same body. That way, they'd never have to leave each other.

"You ever wonder if we knew each other before we met?" John managed to say in between kisses, in between gasps of air.

"John, the idea of reincarnation is in no way based in fact," Sherlock answered just as slowly.

"But I've known you forever. How else can this happen so fast?"

Apparently this was the wrong question, because Sherlock pulled away. "That's another thing I never understood. Why was this so easy for you? I'm struggling very much to figure all of these _feelings,_ " he winced when he said it, "out, but you're simply jumping in and sweeping me off the cliff with you. That isn't fair."

"Feelings are never fair, love. They'll overtake you when you least expect it and bulldoze you, leaving you in pieces that you had better pick up before the damn bulldozer comes again." John pressed kisses all over Sherlock's face and jaw and neck as he said this. "I've dealt with enough bulldozers to know when one's coming. The least I can do is escape with you."

"Take me if you're going. I could use another adventure."

The kettle on the stove whistled for a long time before either one of them thought to turn off the heat.

* * *

In the middle of the night, John sat bolt upright. His phone had lit up with a text message. He thanked his lucky stars Sherlock was a heavy sleeper once he was out. Picking up the metal device, he sighed as he read who the text was from.

 _Are you awake? Mikey's watching the cameras. -JM_

John let out a slow breath. _Yeah, I'm awake. But be quick. I expect your full apology later, when I'm not trying to sleep. -JW_

 _You've got someone with you then? Did Sherlock finally confess to you? :) -JM_

 _He didn't, and I don't expect him to anytime soon. He's scared. -JW_

 _What's to be scared of? His beau killing him in his peaceful slumber? -JM_

John could hear acid dripping off of that last text. _There's quite a bit of time until then. I want to prolong this as much as possible. -JW_

 _So you love him, then? A shame he doesn't love you back. -JM_

 _You want him to, and you know he will, so why interfere? -JW_

 _John, you're standing on the edge of a very unstable precipice. What you have with your beloved Sherlock is sparkly and pretty now, but if even a fingernail scratches at it, you'll be destroyed. -JM_

 _Is that a promise? -JW_

 _It won't be me, if that's what you're wondering. He'll destroy you as easily as Moran completes jobs, and with much less finesse. Sherlock can crush you. -JM_

 _It's like you want me to die. Kidnapping? Being strapped to a bomb? I'm not impressed. -JW_

 _I'm warning you because I want you to come out of this with as few scars as possible. -JM_

 _So, you're worried about me. ;) -JW_

 _I'm always worried about you. Always. -JM_

 _You sure you want to admit that? -JW_

 _You'll never tell. -JM_

 _Goodnight, James. -JW_

 _Goodnight, John. -JM_

* * *

When morning came, Sherlock had his limbs wrapped around John's torso and legs. He woke up like that, and John had his arms just as tangled up in him. Sherlock wondered how he'd managed to find a person that would like him enough, much less care for him enough, to hang on to him all through the nighttime. When he was a child and he still had the option of wandering into Mycroft's bedroom after having a bad dream, he'd ask Mycroft if he'd find someone like his brother, who loved him like his brother did, but would never leave him. Mycroft, being the brother that he was, believed Sherlock needed to learn how to be by himself.

But, no matter how much people tried to label him, Sherlock Holmes never wanted to be all alone.

He needed someone to talk to, to yell at, to laugh with, to smile because of. Mycroft worked well for a long time, but then he went away to uni and left Sherlock. He had tried to interact with others, to find the person that would never let him go, and he made mistakes doing so. Sherlock had almost given up on someone loving him, or even just liking him. Ordinary people couldn't see past his bravado and slicing deductions. They only saw a uncaring man with cruel words and impassive observations.

The problem was that Sherlock had always wanted to be the person his brother became, to save him the pain of rejection, but he could never be that person.

When John walked into Sherlock's way only a few months ago, it was like the rains had come after years of famine. He felt alive again, he felt happy and accepted. It didn't matter that John had killed people and would kill again; everyone had problems. Sherlock deduced them every day. John swept into Sherlock's life and took him by surprise, and that in and of itself was amazing. No one thought him brilliant or wonderful like John did. No one had looked at Sherlock like he was special before.

And John kissed him. John kissed him because to John, Sherlock was different, Sherlock was something separate and secret and those sweet words stuck on the tip of one's tongue when waiting for a partner in an inside joke. John kissed him like a lover, a friend, a spouse, an affair, and a need. Sherlock had never been needed before.

A lot of things hadn't happened to him before John. It scared the life out of him.

His mind palace already had fallen into disarray from the previous months, but when Moriarty had John strapped to a bomb and a sniper's gaze drifting over his chest, Sherlock fell apart. John noticed; John always noticed. He kept him close, he kept him reassured and wrapped around him. JohnandSherlock, one entity.

Sherlock had never been the second half of a whole before. He'd simply never been anything of import before John limped into his sight. Now, he was something. It felt _amazing._

* * *

When John woke up, the two of them were still attached to each other at various points of contact. Sherlock's hand had gravitated to John's chest, and John's had curled around Sherlock's hip. John's back was pressed to Sherlock's chest and their legs wound around each other at the bottom of the bed.

It felt right. They were always supposed to sleep like this.

John smiled and reached his fingers of the hand on Sherlock's hip to the hollow of his hipbone and gently ran them over the soft skin there. It didn't matter what James had warned him about. He was going to stay this happy as long as he could.

No one but himself had the power to take Sherlock from him, not even James.

* * *

Sherlock had woken up just after John vacated the room to make breakfast. John had left him with a kiss on the forehead and a smile, promising that he'd be right back. He believed him. John had given Sherlock no reason to not believe him.

All of the sudden, John's phone lit up with a text message. _Hey, can we meet today? -JM_

Sherlock thought that was strange this early in the morning, so he opened up the previous texts. (John's passcode was the first four letters of Afghanistan. Easy.) The other messages between John and this man called James were similarly strange. The other man seemed like a concerned friend who wanted the best for John and Sherlock's relationship, but there were a few phrases that caught his eye.

 _I expect your full apology later..._

 _His beau killing him in his sleep..._

 _I want to prolong this as much as possible..._

 _You're standing on the end of a very unstable precipice..._

 _He'll destroy you as easily as Moran completes jobs..._

Who was this friend of John's, James? Jon had never mentioned the name of the friend with the cat, so who was this man? Why was he so concerned about the two of them? And why did ominous music echo through Sherlock's mind palace when he read those few phrases?

* * *

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	15. Radioactive Decay

In James' early years, most people didn't give him a second glance. Really, the only reason people looked at him was to find a whipping boy. James was someone to blame for all the problems others had, all the pain they suffered. They needed a scapegoat, and he was right there to take the verdict.

His parents, ugly, whorish, drunk, terrible examples of humanity that they were, started beating James when he was too young to remember anything else. This was the process: Father came home from his dead-end job as a janitor at the primary school a few blocks away, yelled at James for being useless and a waste of space, while Mother was out in the streets as a low-paid prostitute. Mother came home, Father got drunk, beat her for being a slut and cheating on him, and Mother shouted right back at him, saying that if he went out and got a real job, maybe she'd treat him like a man and her husband. Once they both were drunk and angry, and James couldn't stay in his same hiding place, they rounded on him. It was his fault they had low-paying jobs and no money, his fault their lives were far from good, and his fault they hated each other.

Needless to say, James started to believe it after a while.

At six years old, he came to school with a black eye and split lip. The teacher, stupid woman that she was, asked who had done it. James, always the blunt one, told her his parents beat him on a daily basis and that he had been showing signs of it for months without her knowing. He told her that he wanted to die, because nobody ever looked past their fucking fancy shoes and plastic faces to see what was really going on in the world. He said things were always more disgusting than they seemed.

His teacher then asked how he knew the word 'disgusting'. James gave her his soon to be patented crooked smile and walked away. In his head, he knew the word because that was practically his nickname at home.

No one ever called Child Protective Services on his parents. James knew that more than just his primary school educator had noticed; for every day of black and blue skin, crusted blood, and broken glass, someone stared at him like a freak. That was another nickname; 'Freak'.

James wondered if humans, brainless cows that they were, would keep using him the rest of his life to console themselves that they weren't the ones to blame. Crying at school? It was James' scars. Fighting on the playground? James started it. My wife cheats on me every day? James wasn't enough reason to stay at home.

Mother and Father couldn't afford a therapist for him, not that they thought he needed one, so they sent him to church. James liked the stained glass windows, the bright colors, mainly the reds, and the auras of white light around the holy people that looked kinder than anyone else he'd met. He learned about Jesus Christ, the man who died to save humanity, taking the ultimate punishment, making the ultimate sacrifice. James identified with the long-haired man with his sad expression and pierced hands. Even though his mum and dad, Mary and Joseph, didn't beat him, he had gone through so much pain only to rise again and live.

He'd been cut and bruised and whipped and beaten and betrayed and stabbed, but he rose again after dying. No one could tell Jesus what he could and couldn't do. No one would be safe from his wrath.

Divine wrath was another concept James found intriguing. If a group of people, or a single person, had sinned so badly that no forgiveness could fix it, God could come down in all his glory and wipe out the parties responsible. James asked the priest if a human would be able to act in God's stead and punish the wicked, but the man hushed him. No one could do what God did.

James didn't like that answer. He wanted God to fix everything for him. If the Hebrews, the Israelites, kept getting freed and helped and saved, why was James any different?

The priest told him that God only helped those who learned to help themselves. But also, one's heart had to be pure and faithful for their prayers to reach Heaven.

From that day on, James smiled. He was good, he didn't retaliate against the people who hurt him daily at school and at home. He had to be able to help himself, and so, he had to wait until he was older and could take up arms, like the Israelites against the Philistines of old. It was simply a waiting game, and children couldn't go into battle anyway. James prayed every night before he went to bed, his lips blurring over the archaic words meant to invoke the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. His throat ached from all the times he held back screams and shouts. His whimpers simply made him pray harder.

Someone was going to save him. James had to believe someone was coming to save him.

As he got older, his voice cracked, and his form didn't grow very tall, but one didn't need to be tall to be a warrior. Just the image of David against the giant Goliath made James pull the broken glass out of his hands and the slivers of wood out of his limbs. He was underfed, but so were the slaves of Egypt in the time of Moses. That was what made all the difference: James had hope. Hope and faith had kept others alive before him, including Jean Valjean, but he wasn't from the Bible. He was just a thief.

But, like so many things, hope can only go so far.

Carl Powers was one of James' main bullies, a large, strong blond boy whom James hated with every fiber of his being. Almost a replica of his father, Carl was groomed to be the best in everything he did, including terrorizing younger, more vulnerable boys. Honestly, James wanted the divine wrath to come down and smite the wicked the most whenever Carl hurt him. His parents, he was used to them. Carl was the icing on top of his pain cake.

James couldn't have said what finally pushed him over the edge concerning Carl. Maybe it was his shoes going missing again, the nicest pair of shoes he'd ever found on the street. Maybe it was getting a huge scrape on his chest that spanned nearly ten inches. Maybe it was turning eleven and realizing he felt like a hundred years old. He felt so old, so tired. James just wanted the pain to be gone.

It didn't take long to poison Carl's eczema medication; James always paid attention to little details like that. He saw things that most people didn't, he always had, but it had become more than that. Now, he noticed things that even observant people didn't see. He could make plans in his head, elaborate plans that seemed to perform flawlessly. James was good at something besides waiting for once.

When he saw on the news that Carl had drowned in the pool he used to swim in so much, a rush of happiness and triumph coursed through his veins. The death had even looked like an act of God, a simple striking down of the sinner. Bang! Dead. James had never felt so powerful than he did in that moment. He could do what he wanted now, he'd proved himself. He'd followed every order, he'd done everything he could, and when the time came, he'd fought valiantly.

James had his own divine wrath, and from then on, no one was safe.

He was clever, so he knew how not to get caught. His first targets were surreptitiously taken care of, simply, so as to not draw attention. James' parents died in a car crash a few months after Carl. Carl's two friends got alcohol poisoning at a party a few years later. Other people's bullies were the next on the list, fellow victims' tormentors tormented. Tables turned, stakes raised, bets placed, but James won every time.

He'd almost forgotten about Sherlock Holmes.

The boy was around James' own age, but he was so much smarter than everyone else. He'd noticed James had taken Carl's shoes. Now, the average policeman didn't think it at all strange, but Sherlock, wonderful, special Sherlock was different. Sherlock knew Carl had been murdered, but the even better part of the story was that no one believed him. That boy was primed to become James, with his dark hair and sharp eyes. James wondered how long it would take before Sherlock was standing right next to him.

Thoughts of Sherlock soon fled from James' mind as he formed his web of criminals. James never liked calling them criminals; they were really his personal, faith-driven army. They killed who he wanted to kill, and they were simply pawn soldiers he could strategically kill so that others survived. The world was his chess board, his divine battlefield. He alone had the power to destroy.

He went through years of good times, but at the same time, he was so _bored._ His first sense of wonder when he saw those stained glass windows was gone. There was no drive for him. Every year, on the anniversary of Carl's death, he cleaned that pair of shoes he'd stolen and let tears run down his cheeks, but none of his underlings were allowed to ask or even wonder why. The truth was that James was just a child. No matter how old or jaded he felt, he was still only a child. He missed having hope that people could get better and that he could still be saved. He wasn't a warrior, or a weapon.

James Moriarty was a scared, beaten down boy. And he had the rest of his life to prove he could be more.

* * *

When James found John, his heart, the heart he wasn't sure he possessed, broke into two ugly pieces. He'd thought to just capture a few soldiers and slice away at them until they were nothing more than flesh on the ground, but John wasn't like them.

John _glowed_ , just like Sherlock had done all those years ago, but John wasn't observant or outspoken. John was _holy._ John had this light about him, this light that never let him die or give in to the torture. Something otherworldly was keeping John from giving up like people seemed to do so often.

James looked at John and saw a man nailed to a cross with a crown of thorns on his head. '...He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day, He rose again from the dead, in accordance with the scriptures.' In accordance with the will of God, He rose again.

Forget James identifying with Jesus. This, right in front of him, was more.

Who really knew? Maybe that was the moment James wondered. And that wondering, well, it led far down a road he was certain he couldn't travel. He untied and drove John away before the half-saner part of his brain screeched what exactly did he think he was doing. John had integrated himself into the assassinations almost too fast, using his strength and will to carry out the most difficult jobs. He didn't want to leave James. He had never hurt James. In fact, he considered James more his friend than his boss.

James wasn't just wishfully thinking. John had told him himself.

The two of them, followed close behind by Sebastian Peter Moran, ruled the criminal world. It was all that James had been searching for. This was his real family.

But then, Sherlock Holmes came under his radar once more. Sherlock had become the person James had hoped he'd be, intelligent, observant, genius. And beautiful beyond belief, but that was beside the point.

Or maybe it was the point.

Whenever James talked to John, his John, he thought possessively, there was a far-off look in his eyes that cleared if James began telling him his observations throughout the day. John's face would light up, and it reminded him of the way Sherlock's remarks about Carl's shoes had made him feel. John would leave James if an opportunity presented itself, because Sherlock had the kind of power to irreversibly change whatever he touched. It was only a matter of time before John and Sherlock would meet, and Sherlock would take James' Messiah away from him. The one bright spot in his dark life would be stolen.

James was so attached to John it was a miracle he hadn't killed him yet. It was so wrong for James to use John like he had, but no end stood in sight. He _needed_ him.

He'd never needed anybody so much to stay close to him.

So, much to his sadness, Sherlock had to die, because the alternative was John dying. That was unfathomable, so a fellow genius it had to be.

* * *

"James!" John called, a slight smirk on his face. "That thing with the Semtex was not acceptable. I keep telling Mikey you have taste, and I can't be seen lying to him."

James pulled himself out of his reverie at the sound of John's voice. "Lie all you want to that bastard. The stick's so far up his arse it's a miracle he can even talk."

John laughed. James had always noticed how melodious it was when John laughed for real. "I love how you phrase things sometimes."

"Am I forgiven?" James asked cheekily, although he secretly felt scared.

"I can't stay mad at you," John replied, smiling again. He quickly reached forward to wrap his arms around James' waist, and pulled back just as quickly. "But, I do have to go soon. Sherlock's been on me all day about buying milk, so I should probably go buy some before he goes into one of his infamous sulks."

"Do you really love him?" James didn't mean to say it; he just blurted it out somehow.

John's face fell. "It doesn't matter, does it? Only the mission matters now."

And didn't those two sentences make James feel disgustingly happy. "I just wanted to ask."

A moment of silence passed between the two of them. "Well, Tesco is calling my name."

"Yeah. Text me." James winked, and John smiled back.

"Yes, yes, you big flirt. I'll talk to you later."

James watched John walk away from him and wondered, not for the last time.

* * *

 **It seems every fifth chapter is different from the others. Anyway, please review! I love to hear from you.**


	16. Ejecta

He picked his head up off the coffee table and asked as politely as he could, "Are they gone yet?"

John smiled and pecked Sherlock on the forehead. "Yeah. The little girls that you seemed to be so irritated by have left our flat. What did you have against them anyway? They just wanted to know where their...relative was."

"Taken, already dead, but taken. It doesn't matter. People steal dead bodies all the time." Sherlock huffed and sat up, abruptly pulling John into his lap. John just laughed; he'd never been caught off balance by his boyfriend (probably. They were probably boyfriends now). Not physically caught off balance at least. That had to mean something in the books.

"Do you want to go to Angelo's tonight? I would like to go on a proper date with you, Mr. Holmes." John had spoken to James today, so he didn't have any prior engagements. Plus, it was always funny to watch Sherlock deduce people.

"We've spent enough time in the flat," Sherlock agreed. "Why can't the stupid clients leave us alone?" He was back to the adorable pouting face. John usually couldn't get enough of that face, but he liked it better when they kissed. Kissing was definitely lovely.

Actually, kissing Sherlock meant more than that. When John kissed him, a spark flashed underneath their eyelids and burned their hearts, scorched their flesh with the image of the other in a sort of sick tattoo. Sherlock may not have known how many burns covered John's body and mind, but it was a privilege to add one more. He deserved everything John could give him, even if John had to cut himself apart. This wasn't pure for John, it wasn't the beautiful, glowing first love he had wanted to give Sherlock, but it was all he had. The remnants of his soul, thin ribbons of light that they were, belonged to Sherlock.

"John?"

"Yeah, sorry. My train of thought got lost." John's smile was softer and resigned when he looked back at his detective. "Maybe they all work for a local newspaper," he started, trying to joke now. "They want the full scoop on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, lovers or colleagues? Get your papers here! Is the Holmes-Watson duo having a clandestine affair? Come read and find out!"

"But we already know they're right," Sherlock muttered. John stared at him in shock. They'd never labeled themselves; John didn't get to walk into places and introduce his boyfriend, Sherlock called John his blogger when the both of them were working cases, and neither one of them ever said anything more than they thought the other would like. John kissed Sherlock, Sherlock kissed back. They were, most accurately speaking, kissing buddies.

Although, that sounded terribly juvenile.

"Right about what?" John asked cautiously. Sherlock avoided John's eyes, and John hated that. It seemed like eye contact was a crime whenever Sherlock did it.

"We are...lovers, aren't we?" If Sherlock had said an affair, John would've immediately shot that down. Their relationship, whatever it was, wasn't some one-night stand behind another person's back. They deserved better.

Well, Sherlock deserved better. He always did. John deserved what he got. What he would get when this was over and the last piece of John's soul flew away. He was done after this job, he couldn't do it anymore. He'd kill himself before he found another person as beautiful and mad and intelligent and witty as Sherlock and took their life from them. Of that, John was entirely sure.

"Only one way to find out," John replied, his voice quiet and unsteady. Before Sherlock could ask how, John kissed him, fingers drifting over the suit jacket collar, turning it down as he moved the fabric off of Sherlock's shoulders. He pushed Sherlock's arms back so that the jacket could easily slide off and drop on the floor. They had all the time in the world, after all. He could pick it up later.

Thank god Sherlock never wore ties, John thought as he began unbuttoning Sherlock's dark purple shirt, pressing the lightest kisses past his bottom lip, jaw, and neck to the pulse he could hear beating through his detective's skin. There was only skin where John's stubble-coated cheek scraped, only pale, pale skin. Sherlock's breathing got faster as John went down, nine buttons revealing more and more until the shirt fell to the carpet as well.

"You're not being very fair," Sherlock pointed out as John pulled them both out of Sherlock's chair, putting his hands on Sherlock's chest. But it didn't matter that all these features, these _gorgeous_ features, belonged to Sherlock because they were under John's hands, so that made everything John's. _Mine. Mine to take, mine to love, mine to kill. Nobody can steal you from me._

"Then you should even the playing field, shouldn't you?" John responded, walking Sherlock backwards to the couch. He was only wearing trousers now. He'd taken off his shoes and socks when they'd returned to the flat, and Sherlock's feet were bare. John couldn't help but find that incredibly sexy.

Sherlock smirked, and that was when John knew he was forgiven for stripping him. Because Sherlock was going to strip him back. "How do you suppose I should 'even the playing field', _lover_?"

"Any way you want to." And Sherlock's lips were on him, biting and wet, and his hands were on John's face and under his jumper, and their eyes were closed so they practically toppled onto the couch. Soon there was skin alone on their torsos, all that previously-worn fabric left rumpled on the floor.

"So, what the newspapers say is true?" John asked breathlessly a few minutes later.

Sherlock smiled from beneath him. "Always."

* * *

John woke up most unpleasantly to the phone ringing on the little table by the couch. They'd fallen asleep afterwards, John still on top, so it wasn't too difficult to inch forward and answer the annoying device.

"Whoever you are, stop calling this early in the morning."

"It's ten o'clock," Lestrade complained. "Besides, Sherlock told me there'd be someone to look into this death yesterday." He paused. "Your voice sounds funny. Did you get the flu or something?"

"My voice got quite the workout yesterday," John replied, trying not to sound too smug. That was his _lover's_ job. Damn, he loved saying that. "Anyway, Sherlock's a bit busy, plus, he said it was only a six, so I have to come to the crime scene."

"That's fine." Lestrade nodded against the phone and said something nearly unintelligible to the person next to him. "I'll see you there as soon as you can get a cab."

"Yeah."

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you answering Sherlock's phone?"

"Goodbye, Greg." John hung up to the sound of Lestrade's laughter echoing out of the shitty speakers. He had a case to solve without pulling Sherlock out of the flat. Easy peasy. There was a reason for Wi-Fi hotspots.

Sherlock was barely awake, gently shifting and wiggling under John's weight. His lover never slept for long, so John felt really happy that he could while John was around. They had slept nearly...a lot of hours. John didn't bother looking at the time when they fell asleep. "Lover? I have to go out for a case." Sherlock sighed quietly in response. "Will you be alright here for a while?"

"I think...I need some time to recover." Sherlock's lips quirked up into a small smile. "I haven't done that in a long time."

"How do you feel about changing that?" John licked his detective's bottom lip.

"Quite favorably." He pushed John up off of him, and continued, "But not right now. When you get back, though..."

John smirked. He picked his jumper off the ground and pulled it on roughly, yanking on his jeans once he found those as well. He didn't really need to put on anything else. Who would be looking? "I'm bringing my laptop so you can see the crime scene through the webcam. But you should probably put _something_ on before then. Maybe twenty minutes."

Sherlock stared up at John from the couch, still naked as the day he was born. On second thought, maybe he didn't need to wear anything ever again. "If you insist."

"I'll have to kill them if they see you how I've seen you. I get very jealous, I'll have you know." John was entirely serious, and Sherlock knew that, and it was _hilarious._ Jesus, that sounded exactly like James.

"Fine then." Sherlock beckoned John back down to him with one long finger. John gave him the softest of goodbye kisses, grabbed the laptop and his coat, and left the flat.

His body still tingled from the sensory overload. Who knew Sherlock's residuals were stronger than anything John had ever encountered?

* * *

When John arrived at the crime scene, the local police and a few from the Scotland Yard were already there. "Glad you could make it," Lestrade said, pointing to a man behind him. "This is the main detective on this case."

"It's good to finally meet the famous Sherlock Holmes." The man stuck out his hand for John to shake.

John took it. "John Watson. Sherlock is my partner." He couldn't exactly say Sherlock was his lover. That probably wouldn't go over very well with the other coppers. But he wanted very much to shout it to the whole of England. "Are you guys set up for Wi-Fi?"

The man nodded. "Why?"

"Sherlock couldn't be at the scene himself, so he's making me show him the place through a webcam." John opened his laptop on one of the cop cars, quickly plugging in a password and opening a new tab in Skype. He delicately ignored the alert noises his notifications were making and typed in another password for Skype.

"Why is your computer making those sounds?" Lesatrde asked impatiently.

"I have to update my software on a few things. My laptop is just reminding me," John lied through his teeth. In actuality, he hadn't been taking his computer to get files deleted off of it in around a month. The noises were emails from James and Moran, one asking and one threatening him to come and get it taken care of. He knew he should; there were things amassed on his laptop even now that would make his lover sick. That wasn't going to happen. John wouldn't let it.

"Alright, Sherlock," John said as soon as the call screen came up. "Can you see me?"

Sherlock suddenly came into view, wearing only a sheet. John had the strange urge to laugh, but he didn't, because no one else would get the joke. "Well, you're wearing more than you were when I left, that's progress."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Shut up, John. Show me the crime scene. They better not have moved the body."

John smiled secretively, picking up the laptop and walking over to where the dead man laid in the water. "The client that came to see us said that he thought he heard a gunshot, but the victim died by a blunt force trauma to the back of the head," John explained, panning the camera down.

Sherlock nodded. "Move back, I need to see a bigger picture." John obliged, waiting for the other officers to go away so that John could talk to him in somewhat privacy.

"We didn't even use our sheets."

"You could've ripped my clothes getting them off. I had to wear something clean and new."

Oh, Sherlock and his bullshitting. "You're wearing barely anything. Are you trying to be a tease, because I can tell you right now that it's working," John rasped.

"Teasing you isn't any fun until you come back here. I've already solved the case." Sherlock ran a hand through his disheveled hair. John remembered how much of that disheveling was his fault. He couldn't really resist Sherlock's curls.

"Well, I only had to stay until then, didn't I?" John ended the call before he did something drastic, likely involving public Skype sex. "Lestrade, he says he's solved the case. He'll text you with the results. I really have to go."

Lestrade had a shit-eating grin on his face. "I'll bet you do, Three-Continents Watson. See you around."

And that would have been the end of it, except one of the local policemen got a phone call. "It's for you, Dr. Watson."

John held his hand out for the phone, but the man pointed at the sky. "No, that." And there, a helicopter flew down and landed right on the grass.

He wondered who the hell that could be, since that wasn't James' style at all. Maybe somebody else, hopefully not one of his enemies kidnapping him. The last time that had happened, James had killed everyone involved, including their families and friends.

Yeah, best not.

He climbed into the cockpit of the helicopter willingly and put on the headset they handed him. "Where are we going?" he asked loudly. It was impossible to hear over the absolute noise a copter made.

The pilot didn't answer him, but John soon saw.

"Why the hell does Buckingham Palace need me?"

* * *

 **Please read and review!**


	17. Fissure

**Since John has been a two-faced bastard lately, I thought I'd shove a bit of sense into his head. Please tell me how I did. *slightly evil smile***

* * *

The moment John walked into the golden-toned room the helicopter pilot told him to enter, he saw his lover, wrapped in a sheet and pouting, eyebrows furrowed and hair the mess John had left it.

He barely managed to keep his laughter in, sitting next to Sherlock and asking as calmly as he could, "Are you wearing any pants?"

Sherlock gave him his patented 'are all you humans so stupid' look, saying, "No." John really liked that look. It meant John could sit a few inches closer and kiss him until whoever they were supposed to see came. Most looks meant that, actually.

Instead of doing that, he began to laugh, and Sherlock did too. They giggled like schoolboys in the middle of Buckingham Palace, one of them dressed in a sheet that hadn't been used the night before, and the other having been here a few times illegally. One with a singular job, the other with too many. Both insane, both a little too high on each other. Truthfully, John couldn't remember being so happy in his life.

Look at us both, John thought to himself. Aren't we amazing?

The laughter having quieted down, John said, "I'm resisting the urge to steal an ashtray," which started the giggles up again. He knew Sherlock had at least smoked in the past, so that ashtray might be put to good use. There would always be a good story.

"We're pants at this," Sherlock remarked, and John nearly fell into his boyfriend with the force of that utterly stupid pun. They really needed to stop before someone's head exploded. The two of them weren't always the façade they put up; sometimes they went back to the version of themselves that recalled what idiotic jokes and companionship meant. This was so different than usual that it made John want to kiss Sherlock right here, even more than he normally did.

Sherlock was absolutely glowing like this. John never wanted it to end, honestly.

He leaned over and softly pressed his lips to Sherlock's, taking as much care as he was able to make Sherlock feel wanted. John needed Sherlock to feel what he was feeling, needed someone else to understand.

"You both are disgracing these halls by carrying on in such a way," a posh, obnoxious voice that unfortunately both John and Sherlock recognized.

"Shut up, Mycroft," Sherlock bit out, but John pulled away.

"He might have our case, love," John pointed out. Sherlock pouted. "Come on, we both know you solved that hiker case in about five minutes. You'll go into a boredom rant if we don't go with him."

"Fine." The older Holmes brother rolled his eyes at the commotion.

"Sherlock, put your clothes on."

"I don't want to. My sheet is enough."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is." Sherlock stood up and began walking away, but John didn't bother following. His detective had a flair for the dramatic, and if he wanted to prove a point, John wasn't going to stop him. Mycroft, smarmy git that he was, stepped on the edge of the sheet, causing most of it to fall down. Only Sherlock's hips and down were covered now. John licked his lips not-so-surreptitiously. This wasn't fair; John couldn't really jump him in Buckingham Palace.

"Put your clothes on now, Sherlock, or I will let your sheet fall off."

"Fine, I'll just walk away. It's nothing you or John hasn't seen before." Frankly, Mycroft looked a bit scandalize.

"You really shouldn't be doing this to me," John said, dropping slightly into his sex voice range. "Not here. Later, definitely. But we might have a case. You don't want to jeopardize that."

Sherlock sighed. "Is it that difficult of a case, brother dear?"

"Quite." Mycroft twirled his umbrella and continued to look uncomfortable.

"Alright then." Sherlock picked up the neatly folded pile of clothing on the coffee table that John hadn't noticed (really, he didn't), fixed his sheet, and sauntered away, presumably to the bathroom. John wouldn't have minded if he stayed, but...Dammit, he was back in sex mode! Sex wasn't everything in a relationship, and Sherlock meant more to him than that.

Mikey let the corners of his mouth turn up in what John was hesitant to call a smile. "He'll be back in three minutes, twenty seconds. He can dress faster, but the closest lavatory is still longer than it could have been and he'll want to fiddle with the clothes until he gets them right. He wants to look good for you."

"How do you know that?" John asked, color dusting his cheeks all of the sudden. Talking about Sherlock didn't usually make him feel so flustered. He was the king of unfazed.

Mikey glanced at John with what would be called a sad expression on anyone else, but something alien on him. "My brother is in love with you. I thought assassins were supposed to be good at reading people."

"He can't love me already. He can't." His voice was dull and numb, but inside, John screamed. If Sherlock loved him now, John would have to hurt him soon. It was unfathomable, as it hadn't been in a long time. He'd thought he could do it if he tried hard enough, if he closed his eyes and prayed and pulled the trigger, but he just...couldn't.

"But he does. How hard is it for you to open your eyes and see that, John?" Mikey spat. Now this was the man John could deal with.

"I'm perfectly able to see what I want."

"But you don't want to see this," Mikey replied in a tone that suggested exactly how stupid he thought John was. "That's why you're in denial."

"Do you have any proof?" John asked coldly. "We don't work in a world where a look on someone's face is evidence. What evidence do you have that Sherlock loves me?" _It had better be solid. I can't think in maybes._

Mycroft Holmes' head dropped, and he looked at the ground with all the fascination of a lonely teenage boy at the prom. "A few days ago, we had a civil phone conversation. Sherlock hates calling people when he can text, you know that. He was talking about the case he recently solved with you, the one you called, 'The Geek Interpreter', and he told me, 'Cuando estoy con John, tengo ganas de volar'."

"What does that mean?" He didn't know very much Spanish, only what he needed to get by, so he had to be sure. It had to be a certainty, there could be no room for error. Mycroft had to tell the truth.

"'When I'm with John, I feel like flying'." John put his head in his hands, scraping his fingernails against his scalp.

"He only speaks Spanish when he's sad, you know. It helped him associate feelings when he was little. I taught him that." Mikey didn't look so posh and obnoxious anymore. He looked exhausted, like the weight of the world was on the shoulders of his three-piece suit, but he sounded uncontrollably angry. "John, I didn't like you when I knew you as just an assassin, and I hate you now that your job is to kill my little brother. Not only do you have to kill him, but you have to make him love you as well. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. He was supposed to live a life without romantic love, keep to himself and never let anyone near him. That's what he told me he wanted to do, for the longest time. You are going to break him, piece by piece, and you're doing it already.

"Moriarty tells me that you're Catholic, that you believe in God. I read the Bible for education purposes only, but several lines stayed with me afterward. One of those lines says, and I'm paraphrasing, 'One cannot serve two masters. One cannot serve God and earthly pleasures. One cannot love God and lie with the Devil'. You have been walking a very fragile line for a long time, and I don't understand how my brother hasn't seen it yet. John, you spend your days in Sherlock's arms and your nights in Moriarty's. You want everything: my brother, his love, his life, Moriarty's money, the thrill of the chase, that adoring look they both give you. You want to fly with your madmen, you're addicted to this way of living. But it has to stop.

"James may know how to feed that sucking vortex in your chest, but Sherlock knows how to calm it down. James sees you as an asset, a debt yet unpaid, while my brother sees you as his partner, his love. You may want to kill people, but you need to keep them alive. He'll help you. He wants to.

"But, Sherlock will haunt you if you hurt him, because that's what he does. If there is even the slightest hint of regret, he'll fill that small space with acid and let it eat you alive. He may love you, but don't ever think he won't slice you into ribbons. You'll end up just like your precious employer before Sherlock hits the ground. And I will say I told you so."

John could scarcely think, not with that much noise in his head. "Please stop," he whispered.

"I won't. You don't deserve it. If you can look my little brother in the eye and kill him, it will _never_ stop. Do you think the way your heart is clenching and your stomach is churning and the vomit is welling up in your throat at the thought of hurting him will ever leave you? There is no going back from murder."

"I know that," said John slowly, laboriously.

"Do you? Will you be able to look yourself in the mirror without wanting to smash it on the floor? Will you live life normally, without seeing his shadow behind you, in the corner of your vision? Will you be able to kiss someone else without feeling him bite?"

"No." The syllable was not much more than an exhale, an ugly breath that could almost not make it out.

"Do you love him too? Or are you just pretending?"

John choked on his next words, on the bile in his mouth, on the scratching, scarring _thing_ climbing up his vocal cords. He couldn't...say anything in answer.

"That was what I'd thought," Mycroft said quietly, seeming to give up the hard, accusing tone he'd had earlier. But Mikey didn't say what he'd thought, and John was no closer to realizing it himself.

He felt like throwing up, but he stood and tried to shake it off, muttering something about going to find Sherlock since he'd been gone longer than three minutes and twenty seconds. John knew where the nearest facilities were, and so he unsteadily trudged towards them.

Perhaps halfway to his destination, John's formerly psychosomatically limping leg gave out from under him, pitching him into the carpet with no warning. Once down, he didn't try to get back up. He just sat there, his leg curled into his chest. Somewhere in his head, he remembered what Mycroft had told him, the anger in his voice. Mikey did love his brother, however much he attempted to hide it behind formalwear and that demeaning smirk.

 _James won't even tell me why._

Why give John this mission? Anybody can do undercover work, and a woman may have been a better estimate for the seducing part. So why did James want _John_ to kill Sherlock? It wasn't expertise, nor skill-based. Someone else could have made Sherlock shiver under their fingers, take him apart with every fleeting touch, every adoring look and scathing word. Another person could have made Sherlock snap, laid with him in the dark, kissed him in the middle of a crime scene, so _why John?_

Because James knew that John would fall in love first.

* * *

Sherlock finished fixing his collar for the seventeenth time, watching his clock to make sure Mycroft wouldn't get too suspicious. He was nervous, and he never liked being nervous, especially since he so rarely was.

He'd never made love to someone before.

In his sheet, lying languidly on the couch, no one could touch him. Oh, they could stare and lick their lips and walk away more uncomfortable than ever, but none of them could get through his layers upon layers of protection in the form of apathy and general nastiness. Not even John got very far (except for the making him laugh part. That wasn't as big of a deal as he made it to be. Maybe it was).

But when he was back in his normal clothes, with no walls to speak of, all the big emotions that Sherlock tried to keep buried every day came back.

Someone cared about him enough to make love to him like he was to be worshipped, like a precious, precious thing that had to be kept safe and warm. No one treated him like that. To most, he was a Freak, a psychopath, an abomination, a creep, a liar, a stalker, a worthless human being that should have been locked away for the shame of it. To John, he was a lover, a friend, someone to tease and talk to.

John took Sherlock's clothes off like they had all the time in the world.

How was Sherlock supposed to face him now? He knew John cared about him, but if Sherlock did something wrong would John pack his bags and leave him? Would he leave given the chance? Did he sleep with all his women like he did with Sherlock? Was Sherlock anything worth remembering at all?

"Sherlock?" someone called through the lavatory door. "Are you done in there?" Why was John sent to get him?

"Yes. I'll be out soon," Sherlock replied, making sure not to let his voice tremble. He couldn't let John know what he was thinking about. It would probably scare him away.

John didn't say anything else, so Sherlock ran a hand through his hair in front of the mirror and composed his face to show nothing. He didn't have to know until he was ready. It would be alright until then.

He stepped out into the corridor, where John was waiting, leaning up against the wall in a position that looked effortlessly casual Sherlock knew he'd never be able to pull that off without some sort of extra confidence. "Hey, you were in there for a while. Are you okay?" John asked, a little worriedly.

Sherlock kept being surprised with how much John cared. Did he care this much about normal people? "Yes, I'm fine. Shall we go see what Mycroft has for us?"

Suddenly, John's face broke into a smile. "Yeah. Let's go." He reached down and grabbed Sherlock's hand, linking their fingers before starting to walk back into the golden room. Sherlock had an urge to stop John right here and kiss him until the universe ended, but he didn't. There was a case on the horizon, and if he kissed John too long, some of his feelings might leak through. He couldn't create that problem yet.

Upon entering the room again, he noticed Mycroft and one of his associates (he didn't have a boss) sitting on the sofa opposite where Sherlock and John had been sitting. "So glad you could make it," Mycroft said dryly. "I have a meeting soon, so if you wouldn't mind me beginning."

John shook his head, answering for the both of them. They sat indelicately, but John didn't let go of Sherlock's hand.

"Have you heard of Irene Adler?" Mycroft asked.

They both nodded. Sherlock vaguely knew her as one of London's key power players, but they had never met and he only studied her patterns. She wasn't all that captivating. "Good. She has some photographs the British government wants out of her, and anyone else's hands."

"What kind of photographs?" Sherlock enjoyed squirming details out of his brother.

"Incriminating, and illegal since the other person in them is underage."

"Young person?"

"Young female person with ties to the Crown," Mycroft's associate butted in. "We want the photographs found and destroyed."

"She won't give up leverage that easily," Sherlock scoffed. "What do you take her for, an amateur?"

"You aren't an amateur either," the associate continued. "If you can get them back for us, there will be a handsome reward and the gratitude of the British government for a long time."

"That gratitude will only buy you more favors." Sherlock stood and headed toward the door, John still connected to him by hand. "I'll find them and bring them back."

"Unfortunate that you had to have a little tantrum first," Mycroft said, a smirk gracing his face once more. Sherlock ignored him and left the building quickly. He wanted a cab, not one of those black cars his brother loved kidnapping people in.

As soon as the two of them were outside, Sherlock hailed a cab and pulled John into it with him. "Hey, love." John brought their joint hands up to his mouth and pressed a brief kiss to the inside of his wrist. "What's wrong? You've been off."

"It's nothing."

John stayed quiet for the first few minutes of the drive, but then said, "I have something to tell you."

"What is it?" Sherlock feared the worst. John had probably discovered the mold cultures growing in half of their pots and pans.

His partner took a deep breath. "I'm in love with you."

Sherlock had no idea what to say to that. "What?"

John's cheeks flushed. "I'm in love with you. Don't make me repeat it, I can feel my face turning tomato-colored."

Sherlock used every ounce of his deduction experience and a few other methods he was working on to make absolute sure that John was telling the truth. Pupils dilated, breathing faster, heartbeat pounding, that look, the way he gripped Sherlock's hand, the smallest spots of perspiration. "How is it possible that you love me too?"

He didn't realize what he'd admitted until John drew him in for the most quiet, gentle kiss they'd ever shared. "I just do. There's no explaining this, Sherlock."

"Then how do you know?"

John smiled. "Because it's you." He leaned in to kiss Sherlock again.

* * *

In John's head, he was begging whomever controlled fate to not let this fall apart on him. He just needed this one thing. "Because it's you."


	18. Viscosity

**Writer's block and I became good friends. Sorry about the wait.**

* * *

The moment John saw Irene Adler in the flesh again, he carefully looked her over, and then fixed his gaze on her eyes, making sure to not break eye contact. She was a dominatrix, and if you wanted to get out of the situation intact, you had to assert your dominance first.

She wasn't wearing anything, but he was used to that. It unnerved people, gave them a reason to stare. While they were staring, she could do anything, and the explanation Irene Adler gave would entrance and compel people. She was a blackmailer, a woman that swanned through life with her devious eyes and enchanting personality, the very definition of a brightly colored, poisonous flower.

John remembered when him and Irene had been, if not friends, then companions. Never sexual, John enjoyed his dominance too much, but whenever James had his social gatherings, they would gravitate toward each other. People in general bored her and saddened John, so they stayed together, knowing John would never try to kill Irene and Irene would never come after John. Being an assassin and a dominatrix respectively were not inclusive, understanding professions. There was no care nor common interaction in either. No one came to John nor Irene to talk.

They'd spent many a night sitting in uncomfortable chairs trading winks across the table, John in one of James' old suits and Irene dressed impeccably as always. She always wanted to get home to Kate, her long-standing lover. John had no one to go home to, but he could imagine what it was like just by looking at her.

To say John was jealous of her would be laughable now. She looked older, the smallest new lines criss-crossing her face. They always formed when she worked with James; he wasn't good for anybody in large doses. It explained why Moran was completely psychotic and John was getting into a web of individuals who would kill him if he told them everything he got up to.

Speaking of which, John looked over at Sherlock for a split second. His lover had the slightest bruise on his cheekbone that John knew would grow bigger the longer he had it. The bruise's bluish-black color made him want to vomit, because it wouldn't be so bad if John had just punched him once.

Sherlock had needed a way to get into Irene's house, and so he asked (read: told) John to punch him in the face. John didn't want to, he never wanted to hurt Sherlock. He'd known from the beginning that causing Sherlock Holmes any harm would likely destroy him.

But Sherlock wouldn't take no for an answer. He never did, John should have remembered. Rather than trying to convince John further with words, he simply punched John in the face instead. Suddenly, a freezing, blue fury coursed through John's bloodstream. This wasn't the normal red-hot bloodlust he needed to complete his murders, this was the hateful pain caused by those he loved.

It cut into him like knives, like all the knives he'd been tortured with not so long ago. Sherlock could hurt him at the drop of a hat, burn him with a single match. Given a few words of persuasion, Sherlock could easily toss him away. These thoughts flew past John too fast for him to think about not retaliating.

Sherlock seemed to take it in stride, laughing a little before John jumped on top of him with every intention of strangling him. His detective made a joke about him being a doctor, to which John replied, "Soldier." When had he become more of a fighter than a healer? When had he given up on fixing people and just started shooting them instead?

Why did Sherlock have to know him this way?

As soon as John came back to himself, he stood up too fast, letting too much blood rush to his head, and got a good distance away from Sherlock before he could do any more damage.

He documented the damage now, noting a small darkening of the skin around Sherlock's neck. _I hurt him,_ John thought over and over again, like a chant. _I hurt him, I hurt him, I hurt him._ He remembered when he'd woken up to a person in his bedroom and immediately grabbed his gun, not even registering it was Sherlock until thirty seconds later. John had been so scared he'd shoot Sherlock, so deeply terrified, and it appeared he had his reasons.

He'd been scared in Afghanistan when terrorists and torturers could be around any corner. Now, John was the terrorist.

Irene looked him over in the present, cataloguing his sleepless nights and frightened, worried eyes. John had gotten used to being deduced, so he knew what Irene saw. Then again, he couldn't always predict it. Sometimes the image he projected, formed from logical reasons for his appearance, had a little glitch, causing the one doing the deducing to see something they shouldn't. Occasionally, Sherlock noticed James' scent all over him, and not just near the hands and arms, normal places for friends to touch each other. James just liked jealousy games, but John caught that look in Sherlock's eyes. It was a dangerous look, one John saw when he looked in the mirror.

"The photographs," Sherlock was saying. "We know they exist, and we've come to get them from you."

Irene smirked. "You think it'll be that easy?"

"No, of course not. Even the mere thought of that would insult the both of us."

"Oh, so you're the brainy one. You know, brainy is the new sexy." Irene turned to John. "Lovely pet. I wonder if I'd cut my hand slapping that face. Have you ever tried?"

"No, I haven't," John said curtly, making sure Irene didn't say anything that could give him away. She noted his look and raised one eyebrow at him, making it seem like she was reacting to his comment. "Please note that nothing will distract us from getting those photos."

"I didn't think so. Let's assume that everyone in this room is more intelligent than our fellow peers, shall we?"

"Much appreciated," Sherlock drawled, stretching his arms up in a blatant expression of boredom. John found it alluring when he gave off waves of boredom, since it practically dared John to distract him in the most devious ways possible. Also, it caused his dress shirt, which John had dislodged during the fight, to ride up just enough so John could imagine sliding his hands under it, over the skin of Sherlock's stomach. "Assuming that none of us are idiots, I don't need to say that I know the photographs are in this room, but I shall anyway."

Irene glanced around and smiled when her eyes were on them again. "I was told you were the best. I do so hate it when I'm lied to."

"You can either tell us where the photographs are, the simpler way, or I'll get it out of you another way, one that you may not like."

"I'm always up for a game of 'good cop/bad cop'." Irene shrugged.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. That was the signal, John recalled. He had to go into the hall and set something on fire. Sherlock would say that fire revealed people's weaknesses, and everyone was alike in that way.

If a fire alarm rang, John would immediately check if Sherlock was beside him, so it seemed that Sherlock's theory was perfectly accurate.

Irene and Sherlock began bantering back and forth about deductions, revelations, and sex, lighting a miniscule spark of jealousy in John. Those two should never have met. He felt left behind enough when Sherlock began rattling off details about people's personal lives without a second thought, but with Irene came a whole new set of insecurities. If Sherlock hadn't accepted John, he and Irene would have made a lethal pair, both gorgeous, far more intelligent than the average person, and able to hold tight to their games until the other died or forfeited. Irene didn't know when to stop, she never had, and Sherlock would delight in breaking and encouraging her.

It wouldn't even be a real relationship. Irene had Kate, and Sherlock had John, but connections didn't just consist of the physical. Their minds together could burn the world down.

The newspaper caught fire just past Irene's capacity to remember that John was here, setting the alarm off and bringing in a new piece of evidence. Sherlock would have found where the photos were being stored. In his attempt to put out the flames, John heard someone else enter the house. Kate was already inside, and he heard her hit the ground.

A second later, men rushed in, shooting the fire alarm out and putting a gun to the back of John's head.

Judging by the angle, the man was six feet tall, well-trained, but not particularly smart, not compared to the people in the other room. From John's position, he could get out of the man's grip, but not without some contortion and a good distraction. Damn. He let the man lead him back into the sitting room, where Sherlock stood by an uncovered safe, and Irene sat on the couch, wearing Sherlock's coat.

Funnily enough, it was the latter that had John fuming.

Already a gunman was trained on Irene, who was now kneeling on the ground next to John, and the leader, a brash American with a trigger-happy finger, had his gun pointed at Sherlock. Oh, those men were dead as soon as they moved. You could threaten John all you liked, but bring his lover and friend into it, and you were bleeding on the floor in five seconds flat.

"We've come to arrest Irene Adler," the leader said obnoxiously. Obviously, they weren't going to arrest her, and the accent got annoying quick. Some Americans could pull off the accent, while others made John want to tear his hair out. "But first, open the safe."

"She didn't tell me the combination," Sherlock pointed out, speaking curiously level.

"Yes, I did," Irene countered, a slight tremor in her voice. John wanted to reassure her that Kate was fine; she wasn't shot, just knocked out. Unfortunately, that would give the men an advantage.

"No, she didn't." Sherlock shook his head, holding his hands up.

The leader smirked. "In five seconds, shoot Watson. Five, four, three..."

Irene and Sherlock stared at each other, their eyes conveying a message somehow. John hadn't heard any sort of combination to the safe while he was outside. Maybe his lover had noticed there were people intruding before John did and gotten the combination another way.

Without thinking too hard, Sherlock opened the panel of number keys on the safe, fingers hovering over a few digits. He glanced at John only once, as if to make sure he was still alive, still uninjured. When the final key had been pressed, a series of events happened in ten seconds that felt much slower. Sherlock said, "Vatican cameos," and John ducked, because that was one of their code phrases for danger. The gun inside the safe discharged into the guard behind the one holding John, while Irene quickly incapacitated her captor and tossed a gun to Sherlock; John pulled his Sig Sauer from his waistband and shot his guard's leg while he was distracted by the other body on the floor.

Once all of the guards were taken care of, Sherlock having fired at the leader, the three of them formed a triangle in the center of the room. "You have something of mine," Irene said firmly, holding out her hand.

Sherlock shook his head. "I'm not giving it back." A studded camera phone was in his hands, one John recognized as the mobile containing every piece of sensitive information she'd ever come across or used. There was a great deal of dirt on John himself, which was why he stayed as far away from that device as possible. Knowledge was power, a kind of power that both Irene and Sherlock wielded with deadly precision. That information was compromising enough in the dominatrix's hands, much less his lover's. Sherlock would destroy him if he knew half the things he did.

It was then that John realized he would have to be fighting against Sherlock on this job.

He was used to working alone, but John liked having a partner, especially one as amazing as Sherlock. The idea of secretly sabotaging his efforts hurt him.

"John, check that the police aren't here yet," Sherlock said coldly.

"Why?"

"Just do it." Sherlock gave him a head tilt and freezing glance.

Well, no one could say John didn't know when he wasn't wanted. If Irene touched Sherlock, there'd be hell to pay. John stalked out of the room, kicking a few bodies in his path. The places he could see police from were the front doors and upstairs. He checked out the front doors, but no sirens echoed down that side of the street. The upstairs windows monitored the other side of the house, so John scaled the steps and went into the bedroom.

No personal effects littered the floor or the bed. Irene could be very messy when she wasn't being a control freak, but everything was put away. Except one thing, a note on a piece of expensive paper.

 _John,_

 _Kate got pregnant at a clinic. We're having a child. If I don't live through the code-breaking job, please hide her for me. If I do live, tell James I won't be helping him anymore. I have people I need to think about first. He'll listen to you, he always does._

 _Goodbye,_

 _Irene_

John swore. Getting out of James' sights was about as simple as trying to escape a gunshot while blind and deaf. Yes, John had a lot of power in the Apostles and James' other organizations, but that didn't mean Irene or Kate would ever be safe again.

He heard a thump downstairs. Praying that neither one of his friends was hurt, John dashed down to find Irene standing over an unconscious Sherlock. She held her phone in her hand again, and looked much calmer than before.

"He's fine, dear," she said, removing Sherlock's coat and laying it over him.

"Thanks." Irene smirked, since John's thank you could be taken quite a few ways.

"I got what really mattered anyway."

John let his voice drop into the affectionate tone he had only used with Sherlock and James recently. "Congrats, Reenie Beanie."

Irene smiled genuinely. She actually liked the childish nickname, which was a first. Nicknames didn't generally fit her, but she was a real person, not just a figure. "I just hope nothing gets complicated, as things tend to do around here."

"I just allowed you to take valuable evidence from a royal investigation," John pointed out. "It got complicated a long time ago."

"Yes, it did." Irene held out her arms for a hug, and John obliged her.

"Give my love to Kate, alright? And take care of yourself. It would probably be best for you to disappear for a while to work on whatever James has you working so that when you leave, you've got resources."

She pulled away, pressed a kiss to Sherlock's sleeping forehead, and began to walk out. Before she left, she said, "Make love to that man as much as you can, John. Soon you won't have him. And I'm sorry, that's a promise."

John frowned. Irene knew them well.

* * *

 **Please review!**


	19. Fire

Christmas came all too quickly after Sherlock met Irene. He was furious she'd outsmarted him and would have liked nothing better than to have another go at her, but John didn't seem that concerned where she was. John simply shrugged his shoulders and pressed kisses to Sherlock's temple whenever he brought her up. Normally, protective John Watson that Sherlock knew him to be, he'd go on a rampage trying to find anyone who'd gotten the best of his partner, but with Irene, he said nothing.

Did John not consider her a threat? That didn't make sense at all, noting John's tendency to lash out at potential dangers.

Sherlock wondered if he'd really gotten over John killing Victor. It scared him beyond belief, but Sherlock felt so safe now. There was nothing from his past to be frightened of any longer, and it had happened because of John, because of how John felt about him.

Maybe John had it right, maybe Irene wasn't a danger.

Sherlock didn't have to like it, though.

John was noticeably quiet today; he'd taken to pulling Sherlock into hugs and just holding him there gently. He didn't know why John was being this way, but he didn't mind.

Sherlock normally didn't like physical contact of any kind, but John made it feel natural, just a part of life. When Sherlock delved into an experiment, John would brush past him to make dinner around the experiment, showing a level of care and consideration Sherlock had never thought possible. When they finished a case, John would take his hand and they'd go home like that, because the flat wasn't just a flat anymore, it was _theirs._ Sometimes, John just smiled at him, never expecting anything, and when _things_ did happen, it was both of their decisions. There were no expectations, just acceptance. Sherlock would be Sherlock and John would be John, and that was all they expected of each other.

Sherlock loved his life with John very much, and he didn't want it to end, especially not in injury or death. He didn't know how well he'd recover from that, if at all.

"Hey, you." John pressed a kiss to Sherlock's forehead. They were wrapped up together in a blanket on the couch. "What are you thinking about?"

"You."

John smiled softly. "Yeah? And what about me?"

"I could live like this, with you, forever," Sherlock said simply.

Somehow, his and John's feet began nudging each other under the warm fabric covering. "How long has it been since we met?"

"Mm...seven months, five days, six hours, assorted minutes. I can't think when you're tickling my feet on purpose."

John laughed, and Sherlock could feel it, the rumbling it made, the vibrations against his chest. "I'll have you know, these seven months, five days, six hours, and assorted minutes have been the best ones of my life."

"And you think I've turned into a sentimental man." Sherlock pressed a kiss to John's jumper-clothed shoulder.

"Hey, you made me this way! It's all your fault, Sherlock Holmes." John wiggled slightly. "I think my bum's fallen asleep."

"Who says we have to move from this spot all holiday season? Who says we have to even participate in Christmas?" Sherlock asked, readjusting his position on the couch to keep his own body from falling asleep.

"Mrs. Hudson would be very disappointed in us," John pointed out.

"Are you sure? She seems so happy with our relationship she wouldn't care if we had copious amounts of sex all over her furniture."

"Sherlock!" John kicked him under the blanket. "That is not true." He paused. "She wouldn't care if we had sex on every wall in her flat and broke her kitchen appliances."

Sherlock laughed hysterically. "Stop it! You're making my sides hurt," he huffed when he could breathe again.

"Oh, you poor baby." Suddenly John's expression turned serious, with a darkening of his eyes and lick of his lips. It made Sherlock lose his breath all over again. "Should I use my medical skills to fix you?"

"I would be very put out if you didn't," Sherlock replied, sinuously untangling himself from the blanket and laying back on the couch. John slid on top of him with a grace that suggested training in moving smoothly. It wouldn't do for them to be caught, after all.

John slipped his fingers under the casual t-shirt Sherlock had been wearing all day and let them wander over Sherlock's ribs, obliques, abdominals, sternum, and collarbone, until the shirt was all the way off. He then leaned his lips down just far enough to brush against the soft skin of his left side, relaxing the strained muscles there with his mouth. John moved to the other side once Sherlock began to shiver, leaving pale red marks wherever he went, wherever his lips touched, for these were simple contact kisses, not hurried or deep.

"Take me apart," Sherlock whispered.

"With pleasure."

* * *

John covered them both back up with the blanket once they were finished, knowing they'd be too tired to move for a while. But it was a welcome ache. Neither one of them would have asked for more.

"Sherlock?"

"John."

"Can I ask you something?"

"I believe you just did."

John smiled. "I know, my love."

"I suppose so."

"Can you come with me to my hometown for Christmas?"

Sherlock didn't sit up, but he did move so he could face John. "Are you sure you want me there?"

"I wouldn't want anyone else. I _don't_ want anybody else."

His partner stayed quiet for a moment before responding, "I suppose I could learn to terrorize another town besides London."

John giggled quietly. "Alright...and I'll help you this time."

* * *

The day the two of them were leaving for John's hometown dawned in snow and sleet. The sun didn't come out once, not through the cab drive, not at the train station, not through the train ride, and not when they finally reached their destination.

John remembered the place a little quieter than he saw, but he knew town populations grew. He hadn't been here since he went away to college. Sure, he phoned his parents and Harry once in a while, but he had never come back. The fact that he was here now almost didn't even register.

"Do I get to meet Harry?" Sherlock asked.

John nodded quickly. "She'll be very interested to know that I continue the gay pattern. She always resented me for not helping her more."

Sherlock kissed John on the forehead, effectively calming him down. "It'll be fine, John."

The two of them carted their two-day luggage behind them as they walked down the narrow streets. Harry lived in the same place she and Clara bought when they got married, and John had to remember the extra two left turns before they reached it. Visiting hadn't been his style while he was away, and he barely even recalled where the house was. He'd called ahead, let her know him and Sherlock would be coming, but he didn't know whether she understood. Would she let them in? His parents wouldn't be too pleased either. He wanted to avoid staying with them at all cost.

"I can hear you thinking from over here," Sherlock remarked, giving him a look. "Everything will be fine. Your sister loves you and wants you to visit more often. This is exactly what you both need. Now ring the doorbell before I make you."

John sighed. He couldn't deny Sherlock anything.

He pressed the doorbell once, precisely and not too long. John didn't want to piss off Harry if she was drunk. After a few seconds, he heard shuffling behind the door and a few non-descriptive thumps, which he assumed to mean Harry was moving around. Once the noise stopped, the door opened.

Harriet Watson nearly fell over in surprise when she saw the two of them, shifting their feet in the cold on her doorstep. "Hi," John said, looking at the ground.

"Hey, Johnny."

Neither one of them spoke for a minute. "So, can Sherlock and I...?"

"Yeah, sure." Harry moved out of the doorway so that Sherlock and John could plod through, covered in snow. They dropped their bags on the floor for the moment, removing their coats to put them on the coatrack and taking off their shoes. Once both men were dressed in jumpers and button-ups (John and Sherlock, respectively), Harry silently led them to her kitchen table.

"So..." Harry twiddled her thumbs. John didn't notice any alcohol around, so the clumsiness of earlier could be explained by the fact Harry looked like she'd just woken up from a nap. "Sherlock, nice to meet you." She held out her hand, and Sherlock shook it firmly.

"I am always happy to meet members of John's family." Harry smirked.

"Well, you're a right charmer. Where'd you find him, John?"

"In a lab. He told me rather a lot of personal things, and then told me to come look at a flat with him, and then he winked. We've been living together ever since." John thought Harry deserved an explanation. "I'm sorry I didn't visit more. It was bad enough coming back to England without coming back to this town as well."

Harry narrowed her eyes. "You know you have no excuse for leaving me here alone, in this place."

"I know," John replied, exhaling.

Harry grinned suddenly. "Well, all is forgiven. Mother and Father won't be such terrors now that you're having hot gay sex with that tall, handsome man beside you."

Both John and Sherlock blushed. "I wanted you to meet him," John said, choking on his words.

"I'm sure you did. You also want to shove in our parents' faces that Good-Straight-Johnny is now a raging homosexual." Harry evilly tapped her fingers together.

John grinned evilly back. "I was always into men, it's just that they were so immature in school. Girls were my only option, and they were nice, but you're completely right."

"How are we going to do it?"

"Well, I was thinking Christmas dinner in a couple days. Bring him over, introduce him as my partner, they stick in their mindsets for a few minutes, and then, Bam!" John hadn't smiled this much with Harry in a long time, mainly because they were never together anymore.

"I approve of this plan," Sherlock interjected, raising his hand. "We're going back to London Christmas afternoon, so I'll have plenty of time to enjoy the Watson siblings in action."

"Do you just like Watsons?" Harry wondered.

"It appears so, although I'd much rather have you as a friend than a lover. That girl in the supermarket has a crush on you," he replied bluntly, taking John's hand and leading him away from the table. "We can find our room on our own," he called behind them. John caught a glimpse of Harry's face as they walked away and realized how much he'd missed her.

* * *

John's hometown hadn't changed that much over the years. The stores were still the same, the people were still the same, with a few additions, and the feeling was still the same. One couldn't rock the boat without serious alienation, which was why Harry had been so miserable here. John didn't know why she stayed after she left Clara.

The leaving of Clara wasn't entirely true, Sherlock had just mostly gotten that part right. Harry had wanted to leave to save Clara from her alcohol abuse and the money it would cost for rehab, and she'd said so, but after Harry went to a friend's flat to stay for a week, Clara had packed up and left the house without a word. Harry gave her phone to John because she couldn't stand to look at anything that reminded her of her ex-wife.

John should have been there for his sister, he knew that, but she seemed to be doing well now. She'd explained that she'd gone to rehab, and so far, it was sticking. There wasn't a drop of alcohol in the house and she'd bribed the liquor store and all the bars to not serve her, even if she begged and pleaded. He was proud of her, coming back to her old self. Still single, but according to Sherlock, not for much longer.

"Are we getting both vanilla and chocolate biscuits?" John asked, pushing the shopping cart over to his boyfriend.

"Harry wanted both." Sherlock shrugged and threw the packages into the cart. "We also have to buy tea. Your sister has abominable taste."

"She only drinks coffee, love." John walked down to Aisle 4, taking care to avoid other patrons of the supermarket. "It's not our place to question her judgment."

"But I want tea, and she doesn't have any." Sherlock folded his arms and pouted at John, making him laugh. For some reason, Sherlock would only drink tea that John made, probably because he was lazy, but John liked to think it meant Sherlock only liked _his_ tea, and none other would do.

"Fine. But you're paying for it."

"We share a bank account," Sherlock pointed out, taking a loaf of white bread from the shelf.

"Well, then, you'll have to pay me back in cash." John continued walking down the aisle. He had to buy assorted frozen vegetables, and tea, and then they could go back to Harry's house. So far, they hadn't come across very many people John knew by name, so he could just ignore everybody and enjoy this outing with his boyfriend.

But the check-out station had gotten a bit not good. John and Sherlock had gone to the self-check-out, because John assured Sherlock that he wouldn't have another row with the chip-and-pin machine. Of course, that was a lie, because chip-and-pin machines never worked for John.

"Come on!" John said tightly. The card kept being rejected. He was entirely sure he'd swiped it the correct way, and entered the correct PIN, but the damn machine wouldn't accept it!

"Are you sure that's the right card, John?" Sherlock asked gently.

"Yes, I'm sure! It has my name on it as the cardholder. We can try yours too, if you think that would help."

"Do you know my PIN?"

"Love, I'm the one who handles the finances," John replied shortly. "Of course I know your PIN."

Sherlock held his hands up in a placating gesture. "Alright. If you need me, I'll be looking at cigarettes."

"I thought I told you to stop smoking. It's terrible for you."

"Yes, John," Sherlock replied distractedly, looking at a line of menthols on the wall.

John rolled his eyes and tried swiping Sherlock's card. He typed in the PIN with careful keystrokes, making sure he did it correctly.

And it didn't. Fucking. Work.

"Sherlock Holmes, swipe your own damn card, I'm done with this!" John yanked his boyfriend away from the cigarettes and stood as far away from the chip-and-pin machine as he could to avoid kicking it in frustration. Sherlock sighed and swiped the card again, punching in the PIN and watching the screen...accept the payment.

"Apparently John, it's not our cards that the machines don't like, it's just you." Sherlock grabbed their groceries, carrying them for John.

He sighed. "Well, that means you have to come to Tesco with me on all errands requiring a card. You'll hate that."

"If I go with you, it won't be so dull." Sherlock smiled shyly, something John never thought he'd see, and the two of them left the supermarket, but not before Sherlock called out to a cashier, "Ask Harry Watson out, she's dying to date you!"

* * *

When John and Sherlock arrived home, they found Harry in a right fit state, wearing a dress that was far too conservative to be pretty on her. "Johnny, Mum and Dad called."

"What did they say?" John asked, expecting the worse. "Did someone die?"

"Worse." Harry put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "They want him to come to church with you and I and them tonight."

John groaned. He very much did not want to go to church to face every member of the town's judgment, including his own parents'. He'd probably try to sneak away and fail, since his mum always knew when he was trying to get away with something. Well, except murder.

"I know, I know. I'm not looking forward to it either. But hey, at least you'll go out with a bang." Harry shrugged, smirking. "You've got to have a suit around here somewhere. Mr. Holmes is already set. I'm fairly certain he'll attract every straight woman and closeted gay man in there."

"There are no other kinds of gay men?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

"I'm the only out one in this town, excluding John, because no one really knows about him yet." Harry pushed her brother into the bedroom him and Sherlock were supposed to share. "Now, I have a man to dress, because John cannot dress himself."

Sherlock muttered something about liking John's jumpers, which John appreciated, and then Harry carted him off to be stuffed in his Sunday-best.

He'd never liked suits. Suits were always formal, uncomfortable, a visage, and generally not that attractive on him. When he joined the army, he had a suit, but it served as a reminder of battle and bloodshed. James asked him to wear suits for the occasional job, but he chose not to wear them otherwise. Sherlock made suits look so entirely sexy as to persuade anyone looking at him to think he was born in one, and they had to try their best to rip it off him. John had never been that kind of suit-wearer, so having Sherlock see him in a suit made him a bit worried.

Harry cocked her head to side and examined him in the mirror. "And you say Mr. Holmes bought this for you?"

"Sherlock's brother, Mycroft," John huffed. "The man who can't keep his nose out of anybody's bloody business. I hope you heard that, you manipulative sod!" he shouted at the ceiling, knowing there was probably a camera somewhere in the house.

Harry stared at him like he'd grown a second head, but he just sighed. "Do I look decent? Tell me the truth, Harriet."

His sister smirked. "I'll leave that answer to your lovely boyfriend, how 'bout it?"

"Alright then." John opened the door.

Sherlock had changed while John was being made over by Harry, into the infamous plum-colored shirt that was just a little too tight. The black jacket and trousers went with it, and black leather shoes. No tie, as usual, and two buttons showed enough of Sherlock's collarbone to make John think to Hell with this, and ravish him on the wall. He looked frankly stunning, but Sherlock was staring at John, and John didn't know why.

His own suit was navy, and he wore a gray-blue shirt underneath that reminded him of Sherlock's eyes. He did wear a slightly loose black bowtie, because he knew it was hard enough to breathe in that church without Sherlock in there too. And Sherlock never stopped staring.

"What are you looking at?" John asked shyly.

Sherlock let his gaze wander all the way down John's body, and then all the way back up. When he was finished, and John a few degrees warmer, Sherlock took two strides toward and placed his large hands on either side of John's face. "I'm looking at the most beautiful man I've ever seen."

John's eyes widened. Sherlock didn't kiss him like he thought he would, but he pressed their foreheads together, and that meant more than a kiss ever could. "I love you very much, John Watson, and I'll follow you wherever you lead."

John let his eyes fall shut. "And I love you, Sherlock Holmes, until the end."

They had a moment of peace before harry broke through their glass bubble of safety and affection. "Father and Mother are going to kill us both if we're late, John."

John nodded, not letting go of Sherlock. "We're coming, Harriet. Just one minute."

* * *

Sherlock had never spent much time in churches. His family had gone once or twice to keep up their illusion of normality, but none of them had the capacity to believe in fairytales, especially ones so extreme. He knew John had been Catholic and still said grace every once in a while, but he'd never seen this part of his partner before.

John looked so nervous, his left hand practically shaking. Sherlock took the hand in his and kissed the top of it before they got out of the car, and John gave him a glance of such relief that Sherlock scarcely knew what to do with himself. God, he was doomed, doomed forever to be in love, but he didn't care. He couldn't see three inches on either side of John, but he didn't care. He couldn't think beyond a few seconds of John's hand in his, and John's warm arm slung around his waist.

He should have alarms going off in his mind palace, there should be some sort of protocol that kept his observations and deductions safe, there should be doors locking in his vast hallways, but there weren't. Nothing existed, nothing had existed, and nothing could exist beyond right now, and right here, in this whiskey and lipgloss-scented car, with John wrapped around him like an envelope around a love letter.

Sherlock could have died here, and died happy.

"My love, we have to get out now," John said gently, breaking through Sherlock's fractured concentration. "Parents can't be kept waiting."

"I know."

* * *

John couldn't help but remember this place as it once was: large, notably religious, and sharply colored from the stained glass windows. Sherlock sat in a blue patch, while John found himself in a red one. Harry sat in the pew in front of them with their parents.

His mother had aged gracefully, not looking a day over forty, while his father was already completely gray, with wrinkles beginning to litter his face like scars on a tortured man's body. Mum always dressed wonderfully to church, taking the Sunday-best thing a bit too seriously, while Dad wore his usual work suit. They were both raised Catholic, just like their parents. Seeing his parents dress like this on Christmas Mass made him wonder: if he hadn't gone to the army, if he hadn't met James and Sherlock, would he be just like them? Going to church every Sunday with his Catholic wife and coming home to a white-picket fenced house right next door to where he used to live, what kind of life was that? Sherlock would say that was no life at all, and he'd be right. Suddenly, John was grateful to that letter from the army for taking him away from here.

"Mother, hello. You look gorgeous, as always." John pecked her on the cheek. "Father, good to see you." He held out his hand for his father to shake.

"Hello, darling. I see you've brought a guest this evening." His mother shrewdly glanced Sherlock over. "We haven't been introduced. Anna Watson."

"Sherlock Holmes." She held out her hand, but Sherlock, being trained as a proper English gentleman (Mikey would be proud), brushed a kiss on her knuckles. "A pleasure to meet you, madam."

"And I'm Patrick. Nice to meet you." His father and Sherlock shook hands, but John's left hand was shaking more than theirs. He was scared right now, but he knew he'd faced things far more frightening than introducing his parents and his boyfriend.

The truth was that he could use bravado all he wanted, but he was scared that his parents wouldn't accept him, that this small, stifling town would call him awful things behind his back, that eventually Sherlock would leave him because John Watson was the nightmare of people like this, not the other way around. He wasn't supposed to be afraid. Not like this.

He watched his parents and Sherlock small-talk for a few minutes, ignoring what he could. He honestly didn't care whether Sherlock insulted his parents five ways to Tuesday, but he had to pretend like he did in order stay on good terms with them. "So, what is it you do, Mr. Holmes?" his mother asked, looking at Sherlock as if he had some potential.

"John and I solve crimes, and he writes about them." John gave him a grateful look. He liked being included in the actual crime-solving, and not just as the muscle called in at the end. It made him feel worth something. He also knew Sherlock was keeping his answer short to make sure his parents like him.

"We've never read what he writes. Are they novels?" his father asked. John winced.

"No, he runs a very popular blog. It has thousands of views," Sherlock replied proudly, smiling down at John. The look in his eyes was one of comfort, of an invisible hand on John's shoulder. "Your son is a remarkable man."

"Perhaps. However, he is a man still in need of a wife." His mother grabbed John's trembling left hand and held it up to her husband, pointing to his ring finger. "Have you found a suitable woman yet? I'm certain there are some women here in need of a good man to take care of them."

John yanked his hand away as nicely as he could. "My dating life is none of your business, mother. Finding the right person isn't such a challenge."

His mother huffed and turned away from him, kneeling in the pew to pray. His father, always the outwardly polite one, asked Sherlock, "How is your family this Christmas? Are you going to see them, or stay here?"

"We're going back to our flat tomorrow afternoon and having a Christmas celebration with our colleagues. My parents are incredibly happy, having received the trip to France I gave them for Christmas and probably still on a plane. They deserve a vacation." Sherlock smiled. John had never heard him talk about his parents much, but from what he did hear, they were just as brilliant as their sons.

"That sounds like an exceptional present," his father commented.

"I'm afraid I kept the best present for the two of us." Sherlock smiled mysteriously and knelt at the pew, pulling John down with him.

The two of them stayed kneeling until the Mass began, not praying, because neither one of them was the type to pray anymore, but enjoying the sound of the other breathe, and the buzz of gossip from all around them. "Mrs. Field is having an affair with the mailman, the mayor, and the preacher. Mr. Field is cheating on her with the mayor and four other men from the brothel nobody talks about," Sherlock whispered in John's ear.

"Well, I know for a fact that the preacher jerks off to pictures of teenage boys. Mrs. Field is going to have to try harder," John breathed back.

Sherlock stifled a giggle. "The mailman is embezzling money from his employer, a drunk who is currently in the hospital."

"That woman, Miss Clark, is not a prostitute, but definitely a stripper."

"Mr. Simmons hates his new haircut."

"Mr. Walsh is on more medications than the average human being can live through taking."

"He's also a drug dealer."

John had to try very hard to keep himself from laughing out loud. "We should really stop. It's rude to talk in church."

"It's also very rude and scandalous what I'm thinking about you right now in that suit. Do you really want me to stop?" Sherlock and John stared at each other for a moment, completely still.

"I tend to be your enabler," John said lowly, leaning in to press the smallest kiss behind Sherlock's ear.

They smiled at each other secretively, facing the front of the church once again. They both kept their deductions to themselves, but sometimes, Sherlock would tap John's thigh with his finger and subtly point at a member of the congregation, earning another smile from John.

John remembered feeling like he couldn't smile during Mass. Everything was so serious, so intense. No one here looked happy, not even with their children or spouses. There were no feelings to this ceremony, these were just words. John didn't have to believe in this visage of faith anymore; he could believe in the man sitting next to him, unnoticeably lacing John's fingers with his to calm him down.

It was freeing, to finally believe so much in something.

As the Mass went on, the priest, Father Conrad, a sixty-five-year-old man that had been the main priest since John was a little kid, stood up to deliver the homily. This was the part of the Mass that most people enjoyed, the actual preaching part. John either somewhat agreed with what the priest was saying, or completely disagreed. Most of the time, Father Conrad managed to stay fairly cordial, but there were days John wondered if he himself had ever been so cruel to someone.

"Today is Christmas Eve, a time of birth and preparation for what is ahead. One cannot prepare for the future without first examining one's past, and the sins we find there. One must do one's best to be righteous, to not give in to temptation, to preach good and punish evil, for we know not the day the Lord comes. Flaws must be purged to achieve eternal life, and one must remember one's family during this season, for if one is not clean, one's family cannot be so either.

"Those who have left the church, we must pray for them to come back. Remind them of their rightful place in the Kingdom of the Lord. Encourage the spread of the faith among friends and even strangers, for everyone must be part of this new time of redemption. If you know someone who is a sinner, there are ways to fix them. Confession and reconciliation are wonderful ways to remove sins. If you know someone who has left the church, it is your duty to bring them back. During the preparation, nothing can be forgotten, and everything must be in its place for when the time comes."

John could see Harry breathing hard in front of him; he could see her shoulders shake just slightly. He felt so sick, sick for his sister, who'd never had enough love in her life, sick for himself, for not realizing this sooner, and sick for everyone the priest was trying to belittle.

"We have to eradicate sinful thoughts in our society, such as those of abortion, divorce, racism, the redefinition of civil marriage, and abandoning the church. These are issues that cannot be ignored, as they poison the world, as well as the United Kingdom. The Bible was written for us, and it is our job to follow it as the Lord taught us. There is no better preparation than one premeditated by the holy ones."

Now more than just John's hand was shaking. His whole body shivered, and Harry didn't look much better. Their parents were actually nodding, as if racism was even close to the same level as redefining civil marriage! They weren't even inclusive! There were no similarities between the two at all, and the fact the priest had dared to say such a thing pissed John off beyond belief.

People like his little sister and Sherlock weren't poison for being who they were. John knew he had problems that he couldn't easily fix, but his boyfriend and Harry didn't deserve this. Nobody did.

"This new year, follow the laws laid down by our forefathers, and do what you can to bring the flock back to God." The priest stepped down from the podium to cultured applause from the congregation. Sherlock was almost choking John's hand in his, and John had put his other hand on Harry's shoulder, trying to comfortingly rub his thumb along her collarbone. He didn't know why Harry and Clara had survived as long as they did in this place, which destroyed all that could be different or revolutionary. No one could live long here without permanent and damaging consequences.

One of the main problems here was that John knew other Catholic churches were better. They were more accepting, more loving, more open, and generally happier. He knew of places that cherished differences and also cared about religion. There were places that never stopped believing in true faith.

But he wasn't in one of those churches, one of those towns. He was here, and he damn well wasn't going to stand by.

The Mass concluded with Sherlock whispering calming things in other languages to John, trying to tone down his partner's temper. John was honestly so angry he could scream, but he had to wait until the people got out of his way. He didn't want to kill anyone tonight; the law wasn't on his side.

"Father Conrad had a lovely homily tonight," his mother remarked. She had stood up from her pew with his father, rearranging her dress and grabbing her purse. "He was entirely correct about confession, we should all go tonight."

Harry began to open her mouth, but John shushed her with a look. He had a plan, now that his mother had said that. He had a plan, and he would enjoy every second of it.

"Yes, of course mother. I volunteer to go first." John smiled at Mother, but he could see Sherlock notice how fake it was.

"Wonderful. The Lord smiles on you today, John." His father nodded approvingly.

John headed to the corner of the church where confessions were heard, making Sherlock follow him, but stay in an area easy for most of the lingering patrons of the diocese to see. He knew exactly what he was going to do, and it involved Sherlock.

When he entered the confessional, a doored room with a kneeler and screen hiding a priest behind it, he knelt and folded his arms. He wasn't going to do anything he didn't want to do. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," John said contritely.

"What sins have you committed?" Damn, it was Father Litman. They'd gone to school together, where John had witnessed firsthand what hate can do to a person.

"Father, I have fallen in love." He paused. He had to get this right, just this one thing right today. "There is someone out there who I've shared a home with for seven months, eight days, ten hours, and assorted minutes, someone who tells me when I'm being a tosser, and leaves experiments in the kitchen, and can't cook a bloody thing, and adores music and loves me. And I won't let you tell me who I can love."

"Is this a respectable, unmarried, virgin woman? In that case, there is nothing to confess." John can practically see the perverted smile on Father Litman's face.

"No," John replied simply, pushing the screen aside. The priest looked shocked that anyone would do such a thing. "I'll show you who I love."

He kicked the confessional door open, runs to Sherlock's side, and kisses him, deeply and passionately, so hard that they have to gasp for breath when they part. The entire diocese stared at them, including John's mother and father, including the priests and the misters and missuses and Harry, who looked at her big brother like he hung the moon.

"I am in love with Sherlock Holmes. And anyone that doesn't like it can go fuck themselves." With those statements, John took Sherlock's hand and began to walk out of the church, back straight, a smile on his face, and the light restored to his eyes. Harry stared after them for only a few seconds before flipping her parents off and running to catch up.

"I'm done with this," John said firmly, not yelling, but loud enough to be heard by everyone. "I'm done with the hypocrisy, and the lies, and the holier-than-thou attitude. I don't want it in my life, and so I'm leaving, and I'm not coming back."

John and Harry's parents have already turned their backs on them, so Sherlock, Harry, and John vacate the church, with every ounce of dignity they deserve.

* * *

Once they were back at Harry's house, Sherlock and John repacked their suitcases. "Are you sure you'll be alright for a while?" John asked his sister.

Harry shrugged. "What you did was braver than anything I've ever seen. That alone should keep me going until I can get out of this dump."

"You're moving?"

"I might as well. Find a flat in London, meet some nice gay people, it worked for the two of you." John and Sherlock blushed, looking at their shoes like schoolboys caught in a prank.

"Well, we wish you the best of luck," Sherlock said, walking over to hug the much smaller Watson sibling. John smiled; maybe it was just a Watson-2nd generation thing.

"Thanks, Mr. Holmes." Harry slapped him on the back. "Now, go home to your flat for Christmas! Enjoy the life you've got, because it's really awesome."

John reached over to hug his little sister as well. "I love ya, Harriet."

"I love you too, Johnny." She shooed them away from her house with a smirk, already beginning to take photographs down from her walls as the door closed behind them.

The train ride into London was quiet, just the two of them enjoying each other's company, until Sherlock said, "John, you amaze me."

John curls into Sherlock's arms. "I can't be amazing without you."

* * *

 **This chapter kind of got away from me, if you could tell. *looks down at word count* I hope it makes up for my bad publishing habits recently. I don't want to offend anybody with this, but if you don't like it, don't read it. The thing about racism being compared to redefining civil marriage is absolutely true, I did not make that up. I found it in a letter from the bishop to the members of my diocese, and it made me as sick as it made John and Harry in this chapter. Love is love, and no book written three thousand years ago can change that. Please review, guys, I really love your feedback. Sorry for the long wait.**


	20. Debris

Irene had met John at one of Moriarty's little parties. Neither one of them looked like they belonged there, John with his open eyes and flirtatious smile, Irene in her 50s-style garb and carrying the most frightening and sexual aura anyone in that room had ever seen. They both attracted people, but John only had eyes for the host, and Irene had a woman at home.

"You might as well shoot a hole through Mr. Moriarty with that gaze," Irene had remarked, finding John in a corner, leaning against the wall and drinking Scotch. It wasn't his drink, she could tell, but it seemed like the thing to get smashed on.

His mouth twitched upward a little. "I don't want to shoot him. Although, the other occupants of this place..."

She laughed. "I agree completely. When will any of these imbeciles understand that I'm not interested?"

"Never. They'll never understand that the only people you've been staring at in here are the women, and only the submissive looking ones." John smirked. "You have a type, I see. And it isn't any of those idiotic men."

"I'd be willing to give you a ride," Irene commented coolly, taking his glass of Scotch from him and finishing it.

John laughed quietly. "Ah, but you see, I'm far more likely to fuck James. Also, you can't stand rivals in dominance."

She shrugged. "Oh well. You've been most intriguing, John Watson."

"I'm not going to ask how you knew my name. It appears I'm infamous already." And John didn't seem happy about it. Most people would be glowing at the fact that a very dangerous person knew their name, but John wasn't. His expression immediately shut down, his shoulders curling in.

"I'm Irene Adler." She held out her hand and he kissed the top of it. A gentleman, how nice. "Now we're even."

A faint smile returned to his face. "Now we're even."

Ever since that one party, they sought each other out. Of course, the entire criminal underworld thought they were _involved,_ but Irene and John never were. Eventually, they arranged meetings outside of social gatherings, in public places like Starbucks and the theatre. Irene would talk about her life with Kate, something only a handful of people knew about, and John would talk about the newest insane thing James had done. Sometimes, she wondered if John was in love with him. Other times, she saw more than madness in Moriarty, and wondered the opposite. John and Moriarty had a strange and very unhealthy relationship, but neither one of them would budge, so she kept wondering.

But Irene got a tape in the mail, in a large envelope sealed with red wax. When she opened it, a note written on thick paper fell out of the packaging.

 _Dear Miss Adler,_

 _Please enjoy this special gift in light of your recent good news._

 _Congratulations,_

 _James Moriarty_

She threw the note on the floor and made Kate pick it up for her, even though Kate should have been resting. They'd just learned about the baby, and Moriarty shouldn't have known that fast. Irene knew she had to watch the tape, just in case she needed to call John in for some relocation. He was always the best at finding pretty houses for her and Kate to live in. He loved them both very much.

Irene didn't even bother asking Kate to find her laptop for her; she dug through her closet to find the secure one she was looking for. "Darling!" she called into the sitting room. "James sent us a present."

Kate's smile upon hearing her call out faded once she heard who it was from, and Irene pulled her into her lap on the couch. She'd promised to always take care of Kate. Nothing was going to stop her, not even a tape from the master of crime himself.

After pushing the tape into the player connected to their large television, Irene waited impatiently for it to read, clutching Kate a little too close to her. The scene that popped up on the screen wasn't one she'd seen before, but she recognized the people in it.

John and the detective from Crimewatch, the one with the funny hat, Sherlock Holmes, were standing at a kitchen counter, making dinner. Well, John was making dinner, and Sherlock had his arms wrapped around John's waist and his head on John's shoulder. He said something, something that made John laugh, but she couldn't hear his laugh because the video had no sound. It actually looked quite a bit like security camera footage.

But never mind that; John looked so _happy._ In the years she'd known him, Irene had never seen John look that happy, not ever. This detective, Sherlock Holmes, must have been someone truly special.

She watched with Kate, riveted as the two men moved around each other to find dishes, bicker, and touch. Whenever Sherlock brushed John's arm, John would smile and run a few fingers across Sherlock's spine, which Sherlock would respond to by kissing John at the place where his neck met his back. They rarely stopped smiling, except when John got this stormy, lustful look in his eyes and pounced on Sherlock with all the finesse of a man with a hangover, but it didn't matter.

Irene got scared all of the sudden; if John could love someone that much who wasn't James, then James was going to kill that person, because James was a madman, a madman who would do anything to keep John by his side.

* * *

When they met a few weeks later to discuss the photographs, ones she'd taken a long time ago for blackmail purposes (before she met Kate actually), she noticed how different he was. John Watson didn't look like a tired assassin, he looked terribly in love, and that was so much worse.

Irene warned him to be careful, to make love to Sherlock until they both died, because she knew that wouldn't be too far away. John smiled softly at her, but didn't answer. She knew what he was thinking, just then. He was hoping no one would find them, hoping to God that no one important had noticed.

She also knew with that tape that someone important already had.

Irene didn't have a meeting with James until Christmas Eve. "So, how's the baby? And the mother, doing well?" he asked, his Westwood suit brand-new and unmarred by blood. He hated to get his suits dirty, especially on holidays.

"They are both doing very well," she replied cautiously, but nonchalantly enough to almost make James believe she wasn't treading lightly. "What would you like me to do?"

"Fake your death, leave your phone with dear Sher, and move yourself and Kate out of this place. The Americans are after you again, and John wants me to take care of you." He sounded strange, choked up. And she had no idea why, and it scared her. "How's the code you found working?"

"No one has been able to crack it yet." Irene put on her Mona Lisa smile. "You know I've got my best people on it. They've been a bit tied up, though."

James laughed. "I understand. I'm giving you until March 21st. First day of spring. After that, you and Kate don't get any more protection, and Johnny's deadline gets moved up. I originally was going to give him all the time he wanted, but every game must come to an end." He turned his head to stare at Irene disconcertingly. "Especially if you displease me, Irene Adler."

"Consider it done." She smiled and left the room, high heels clicking as she turned his back on him, resisting the urge to make sure she wasn't being followed.

* * *

John hadn't known the whole time that Irene wasn't dead, meeting her car a week after the news officially went through, well, the news. He had new lines on his face, she noticed. And he thought she looked older before.

"Mikey, I know you don't give a damn, and you could probably tell through the cameras, but now is not a good time. Sherlock is frustrated to death with this case to the point where I can't even get him to eat or sleep anymore. I don't need your ugly nose butting in where it doesn't belong."

"Well, sweetheart, I don't know how I can help."

John's surprise hit his face for a split second, dropping almost instantly. "I should have known. Mikey doesn't like me enough to kidnap me again."

She giggled. "It appears you two have quite the bout of animosity. What could have caused that, I wonder."

John rolled his eyes, smiling at her. "We had a difference of opinion on my importance in Sherlock's life." She raised an eyebrow. "He called me a whore," John admitted bluntly.

Irene put a hand over her mouth in overdramatic shock. "That is a quite derogatory term! Did he not know about your noble profession?"

"Oh, he knew. Apparently, he's worried about his brother. How does he not understand that Sherlock is my whole world?" John huffed and crossed his arms. Irene knew how dangerous it was to admit such a thing with so many people listening, but she didn't know why. Why would John, king of subtlety, say something so indiscreet? Did he have any idea who was watching him?

But he did, didn't he? John knew that Moriarty was watching and rubbed his relationship in the criminal's face. Oh, John was stupid. Perhaps he thought he was brave, but Irene knew better. This was insanity, and there was nothing she could do.

"I don't know," she replied quietly. "Not everyone is as observant as me."

"I suppose not." John smiled. "Now, why did you call me here?"

Irene took the piece of paper out of her bra. "One of my clients began bragging about this code, the code to a secret government mission. No one I've met has been able to crack it, and I think Sherlock could." She handed it to John and he unfolded it.

"Are you sure? It just looks like letters and numbers to me. I know some codes, but not this one."

"That's why I want Sherlock on it." Irene pulled out her phone and sent a text to John. _I'm delivering this through you._ _He can't know I'm alive, but I need him to crack this, because otherwise, Moriarty will stop protecting Kate and I._

John read the text quickly and then sent, _But there has to be more. You and Kate can mostly take care of yourselves. What else is this about?_

Irene cursed. She should have known he could see right through her. _He said your mission would have a deadline if I didn't solve this. Judging by the way he said it, a deadline would be very bad for you._

John carefully arranged his face to be blank. This had to be much worse than Irene had thought. If John was scared...something was very wrong. What could scare the Beloved so much?

Suddenly, it hit her. _Oh, John._

 _Don't. Just don't._ John looked up from his phone, glanced at the code, and stuffed it in his pocket without looking back at her. "I'll take it to him. He will solve it soon enough, and then you can get out of this place."

"Thank you," Irene whispered, wrapping her arms around him. He hugged her back fiercely, and she thought she felt a few drops of water stain her dress. This explained everything, every cautious look he'd sent Sherlock's way, every defiant gesture towards Moriarty.

John's mission was to kill Sherlock, and he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that didn't happen.

But Irene knew John. She knew that of the billions of people on this planet, one of the only ones who could make John obey was James Moriarty. If Moriarty still had that power, even though John loved Sherlock, then Sherlock was a dead man walking. And John would be so destroyed that no one could ever put him back together again.

That was what James Moriarty wanted: a man who would follow him to the ends of the earth because that man had nothing left to live for.

On one hand, Irene understood Moriarty because she knew what it was like to be so bored with stupid, cowering people that she would use and abuse anyone who tried to go against her. On the other hand, John deserved to be happy, far away from all of this. There were messes that not even the Beloved could clean up, and Moriarty was one of such messes.

Most of all, Irene understood that there was nothing she could do. If she tried to intervene, her and Kate and their unborn child's lives would be in jeopardy, and however much she loved John as a friend, she could not risk her family to traverse through the wreckage.

This was dangerous, but then, everything was these days.

She couldn't turn back now.

* * *

Sherlock solved the code in five seconds flat. As soon as John got the results, a jumbo jet flight number 007 leaving Heathrow at 6:45 pm, he sent them to Irene, who sent them to Moriarty.

He sent back a smiley face and a bank account number, telling her to run where no one in Europe could find her. Irene took the money and left the country, taking Kate with her in the first-class section of the airplane. Before the plane took off, she called John.

"I thought you were leaving the country."

"I am," Irene replied, amused. "Kate and I are saying goodbye."

She could hear him smile through the phone. "Alright. I wish you the best of luck, my Reenie-Beanie. Give my love to your wife as well, and the little one."

"I will." She paused. "Be careful, John. Don't do anything you'll regret, because you won't be able to forgive yourself."

John huffed at the end of the line. "What am I supposed to do? I can't hurt James any more than I can hurt Sherlock, and if Sherlock finds out about this, there will be hell to pay on both sides."

Irene glared at John, even though she knew he couldn't see her. "John Watson, I'd never thought I'd say this, but you're a coward. If you love Sherlock as I think you do, you would do anything to keep him safe, and that includes angering your boss. James Moriarty is not your God, neither are you his slave, and you have the ability to think and behave for yourself, so use it! You can't pretend to go against him and then do whatever he says like a dog with no concept of right and wrong. Moriarty is evil, you know that, and if he wants to hurt your lover, than he is even more evil than I thought he was. You have more self-respect than this. There isn't even a choice here. Don't you dare ask me what to do again."

John sighed. "Irene, you don't understand."

"I don't have to understand. You're being a spineless coward, and you know what I think of insects like that. If you kill Sherlock because Moriarty told you to, then I'll kill you myself, no matter what the circumstances. I thought you were better than this, John." Irene hung up, smashing her phone on the seat in front of her and throwing it in the trash-bin when the stewardess walked by.

Kate brushed Irene's hair back calmly. "You said what he needed to hear, my love. Don't feel sorry."

"I'm not sorry," Irene hissed, pulling Kate into her arms and running a hand over her wife's swollen belly. "But I am angry."

"Forget about him for now. We have this whole plane trip to America, don't waste it thinking about him. It's not good for you."

Irene tightened her grip and buried her nose in Kate's neck. She was afraid of Moriarty, and she was afraid of what John would do, because the world was a battlefield for them, one that she didn't want to raise a child in.

She had no power now, so her only choice was to wait.

* * *

 **There. John finally heard something useful.**


	21. Lake Nyos

Sherlock woke up with a craving for cigarettes, for impure nicotine, and there were no cigarettes in the entire flat.

He knew why: John had been trying to get him to quit lately. Something about not dying before his time or whatever. Really, he would have listened, but there was a buzz of thoughts that couldn't be silenced, a noise that wouldn't go away. Listening didn't fit on his radar anymore, not with his mind. Sometimes, John's presence helped with the roar of his mind, but he couldn't be dependent on John forever.

Loath as he was to think it, someday, John might not be there.

John shot people, ran into danger as easily as Sherlock did, and he couldn't help but be scared that John wouldn't run back to him, that someone would shoot John instead.

Even the mere possibility of that happening sent Sherlock into a strange sort of panic, ransacking his mind palace, breaking through drywall and stepping on vases. _If John knew what he did to me,_ Sherlock thought to himself. _If John knew why I was looking for cigarettes, he'd give me a look, one of his patented John-looks and I'd be speechless._

What a wonder that John had the power to take away his stream of words.

This should have been dangerous, all of this, the power John held over him, the sheer vastness of emotion between them. It should have been so dangerous that Sherlock couldn't breathe. But something kept his lungs open, something kept him inhaling the mess that was him and John Watson. He had a feeling that it was John himself.

He wondered if John felt as scared as he did most days. He went back to his search.

* * *

John recognized the man at the door from the telly. He'd been on a show concerning the Hound of the Baskervilles, a monster story made for tourists. While it made a good publicity stunt, John really couldn't bring himself to believe in it. The real monsters were people, ordinary-looking people with their hands in their pockets, walking down the street. Solving cases with Sherlock had taught him that, life with James had taught him that.

But, Sherlock needed a case. He'd taken to searching for cigarettes throughout the flat. John knew where to hide something so it wouldn't be found, and Sherlock hadn't found them yet, which proved he hadn't lost his touch.

Hiding the cigarettes was a less-than-worthy distraction from what Irene had said to him the last time they'd talked, which was three months ago. She'd called him a coward, and he realized that she was right. John was a coward, a man who couldn't go against the only man to ever understand him for the only man he ever loved. After thinking about it for longer than he should have, he figured out something that should have been obvious the moment he met Sherlock.

John did not have the heart to kill Sherlock Holmes, he had known that, but he now realized that he couldn't do it anyway.

Before, he'd thought that he could bullshit his way through the courting and the killing, losing the rest of his soul without a fight and giving himself over to James until he died. He'd thought his mind could survive it. He'd thought that Sherlock would become a distant, painful memory, one that he'd take out and torture himself with every once in a while.

And then, John figured out that killing Sherlock was as good as putting the gun to his own head and pulling the trigger. It may not have been healthy, or wholesome, or good, but John _needed_ Sherlock, needed him with every fiber of his being.

And he also loved Sherlock, loved him so much he felt his body tearing from the vastness of his ugly, wonderful feelings.

But his every attempt to contact James was thwarted. He texted him several times, but James made no indication that he'd read the messages, nor that he understood. There were very few reasons John could think of for James to ignore texts from him: either he was on a serious undercover mission, one that he couldn't get any of his cronies to do for him, or he'd been kidnapped.

Personally, John hoped James was undercover. If he'd been kidnapped, he'd be angry, and an angry James was a rash one. It wasn't like John expected James to calmly accept the fact that John would never kill for him again, but John would rather avoid an elaborate revenge scheme for Sherlock's sake (but mostly for his own).

Whoever said one couldn't be selfish when it came to one's murder?

"Sherlock, love!" John called down the hallway. "Client!"

Said client looked a bit uncomfortable, but didn't back down from their doorstep. John nodded. That took guts. Coming here to talk to Sherlock took guts, especially after witnessing the perfectly normal exchange between him and his partner. It was actually a fairly easy way to find good clients. Depending on how people reacted to the two of them, Sherlock could then deduce how important their case was, and John could figure out if they would cause trouble in the future.

Sherlock left the bathroom with a towel over his shoulders, protecting his posh jacket from his dripping curls. John smirked. He never could understand the gravity-defying and often ridiculous hair of Sherlock Holmes, although he did enjoy it very much. "Who are you?" Sherlock asked bluntly, indelicately and yet extremely attractively perching in his chair.

"My name is Henry Knight," the man stammered. He had rather large ears, reminding John of an assassin he'd had the good luck to kill a year ago. He sat carefully in the client-designated seat, fidgeting like a liar in a lie detector.

"And what is your reason for being here? Feel free to smoke, I know you've been craving." John glared at Sherlock. Smoking was a nasty habit, one that tended to kill people too early. He didn't want to watch his lover waste away in a hospital bed, he just couldn't.

Henry Knight, not noticing the thread of tension running between John and his nicotine-addicted partner, pulled out a cigarette, his fingers shaking as he tried to light it. Eventually, Sherlock stood up and lit it for him, dramatically inhaling the first burst of smoke puffing from Knight's mouth. He immediately relaxed, almost dazedly returning to his big black chair. "When I was a child, my father died. Well, he was killed," Knight started.

"You watched him die. You were convinced it must have been a huge beast, tearing him to pieces, done and dead. But that happened years ago, so something must have happened recently. Last night, in fact. What was it, and please describe in detail. I can't afford to have my time wasted." John rolled his eyes. Sherlock always had to get right to the point.

Knight swallowed. "I went back to Dewer's Hollow, the place where my father died. When I was there, I saw the beast. It was gigantic, black-furred, with these horrible red eyes. I dropped my flashlight and ran away."

"Why do you need me? So an animal is on the loose, so what? What part of this requires me? John, please show Mr. Knight from the flat. Thank you for smoking." Sherlock made a vague gesture away from himself, flicking his hand absently.

"But, Mr. Holmes," Knight protested. "There is a great, huge monster roaming near Baskerville. They have all sorts of experiments there, things that the government may not even know about, things that would horrify anyone. This hound might be one of theirs!"

Sherlock stopped his hand's movement all of the sudden. "Say that again."

"There is a great, huge monster-"

"No, the last part."

Knight took another drag of his cigarette. "This hound might be one of theirs."

And then, Sherlock smiled. "I'll take the case."

"You will?"

"You will?" John repeated quizzically. "I thought you decided he wasn't interesting. This case was about a generous three, and you're going to take it?"

"Yes, John, I am going to take it." Sherlock triumphantly stood up, swishing his still wet hair behind him. "I will see you again in Baskerville, Mr. Knight."

Henry Knight happily puffed a bit more smoke before stubbing out his cancer-stick in the ashtray Sherlock had stolen from the Queen of England. John hadn't even noticed Sherlock had stolen it at first, having been more preoccupied with telling Sherlock he loved him. But later, after the dust cleared, he saw the glint of glass inside Sherlock's coat pocket. He really had taken John seriously, and that made him love Sherlock all the more.

Once Knight had left, John quirked an eyebrow at his partner in the doorway of their room. "Are we really doing this?"

"Of course, John," Sherlock scoffed, neatly folding a few of his shirts and placing them in a suitcase. "Why would I tell him I would take the case and then not take it?"

"If you were trying to get Mycroft off your back." John smirked. "Alright, fine. How much should I pack?"

"A week's worth, perhaps. I've been meaning to take you for a proper holiday. That one to your hometown doesn't count." Sherlock shyly smiled. It was a good look on him.

"No, it really doesn't." John went on his tiptoes to press a kiss to the tip of Sherlock's nose. "Thank you."

"Anything for you, John Watson."

"Hm. Same to you, Sherlock Holmes." He curled his arms around Sherlock's waist, discreetly feeling for his ribs. He'd been eating more lately, but John had to check periodically. He worried too much, he knew that, and he didn't use to, so he was still getting used to caring again.

Sherlock squirmed in John's hold. "You could just ask me how much I've eaten this week."

"Oh, it's this _week_ then." John glared at him.

"You've seen what I've eaten. I've even drank that annoying substance you are always bothering me about."

"Water?"

Sherlock huffed. "Yes. _Water._ I've had takeaway and dinner with Mrs. Hudson and tea. What else is necessary?"

"Did you delete all the nutrition you learned as a child?" John lightly banged his head against Sherlock's chest. "Oh God, please spare me. I don't deserve this."

"I should think you do," Sherlock retorted, the hand slipping through John's hair the only outward indication of the affection that came with that statement. " _Doctor_ Watson. You were a doctor first, remember?"

"Unfortunately." With a crooked grin reminiscent of his days before uni and the army, John slid his hands down to Sherlock's hips. "You'll be fine I think. You and I will be eating in all the same over-priced, tourist-trap restaurants Baskerville has to offer, and I'll watch you eat to make sure you're at least eating half the amount of calories you need, and in return, you'll look incredibly sexy as we solve this case. How's that for a deal?"

"I don't like deals," Sherlock replied simply, the tips of his fingers toying with the hair at the nape of John's neck.

"Do you think we'll scare the neighbors?"

"Why would we scare...oh." The slightest blush dusted Sherlock's cheeks. "Yes, quite."

"I love it when you sound posh." John let his hands go down further, sending his lover into a bit of a tizzy. Tizzy was a ridiculous word, one that James used every once in a while, but one that made John smile in reference to his detective. His decidedly un-ridiculous detective. "We don't have to pack just yet, do we, Mr. Holmes?"

"I think not. It'd be such a waste." And he sounded so breathless, so choked. John did this to him, John made him breathless. A rush of stimulant went through John's head at the thought.

"You read my mind."

* * *

By the time they'd packed, the only one with any capability to drive was John, since he had learned to shake off any after-effects of their _activities_ rather quickly. Part of infiltration was appearing less focused and attentive than one actually was, because one never knew when one had to run. It was just habit now, just residue from a life John refused to live anymore.

But he still couldn't contact James, and that unnerved him.

He shook his head. This trip had nothing to do with James, not today. John would resolve their issues when he and Sherlock came back from Baskerville, no sooner.

Sherlock had fallen asleep in the backseat of the rental car, his long body somehow contorted to fit. John reached a hand back to run it through Sherlock's slightly unruly curls and then went back to the steering wheel. In his brief stint in America, he had to learn to drive on the left side of the vehicle and the right side of the road. He hadn't driven much since then, and had to get back into the correct form. He wasn't willing to risk Sherlock's safety on something so trivial.

Bringing his eyes back to the road, he let his instincts take over, leaving his mind to wander a little. What would Sherlock say when John told him the truth about himself and James? In fact, John didn't know how Sherlock hadn't figured it out sooner. John may have been the best-trained assassin behind James himself, but Sherlock should have been able to see through him in a heartbeat. The fact that Sherlock hadn't should have made John worry, but he didn't.

(Deep in his head, there was the smallest, darkest worry that Sherlock was playing him, that Sherlock knew what he was and was just _waiting_ for the right opportunity to cut him apart piece by piece with his cruel words and that disgusted look in his eyes, and oh, John would let him. John would let Sherlock kill him, let him scratch John's heart out of his chest without screaming, let him break every bone in John's body. And Sherlock would delight in it, John thought to himself. He'd laugh as John died, watch the light leave his lover's eyes and smile that beautiful smile that made John's knees weak even as the bullets shattered them.)

Sherlock didn't forgive easily, John understood that. But he knew Sherlock would forgive him eventually, because John would kill James to prove how serious he was about changing. John would have control of the Apostles and no one from that gang would ever bother them again. The criminals left would be enough for the two of them to run throughout London the rest of their lifetimes. They'd never have to be frightened again.

And, more importantly, John would never have to leave Sherlock again. No calls at 3 AM for a mission report, no summons to various countries, no interruptions. It could be him and his detective forever. No one would ever have the ability to hurt John's partner, not while John was alive.

John brought up Sherlock's thoughts at what could be considered a betrayal, but pushed that aside just as easily. All he'd done since he'd met Sherlock was to protect him, to keep James from taking matters into his own hands. Surely, with Sherlock's mind he could recognize that. John was a hero, a man who'd made the best of a bad situation and had the power to fix everything that happened from that decision onward.

Just one bullet, and John would have everything under control once more. A bullet and a phone call.

* * *

Mycroft tapped his blood-tipped umbrella on the cold stone floor of James Moriarty's cell. "Are you ready now?"

"Johnny is calling me," James whispered, delirious. "He's calling me to see if I'm okay when he's not around."

"I believe 'Johnny' won't be yours much longer." Mycroft's expression resembled the look of someone who'd just been urinated on by an irate canine.

James giggled. "He'll always be mine. Johnny will always love Daddy best." For that useless comment, Mycroft raised the point of his umbrella and lovingly cut it into the skin of James' stomach.

"His many lovers matter not to his madness."

"Madness is _everybody's_ master." James said, like it was obvious and Mycroft was just incredibly stupid. "His lovers, me and Sherlock and all the people he's killed, merely determine how his madness comes out."

"And how will it come out on Sherlock?"

Moriarty's only reply was a slow lick of his lips.


	22. Ridge

John woke Sherlock up to watch the sunrise. The air was surprisingly clear here, untainted by smog and dirt. He took a deep breath and gently exhaled, seeing just the slightest bit of white leave his mouth from the cold. Perhaps mornings were always like that here, if one paid attention: cold and clear.

The sky had soft glints of violet, orange, and blue, the sun peeking out from behind the moors. Sherlock's hair turned a dark brown in the light, with streaks of gold and red. His curls were in disarray and his eyes were still a bit pink from sleep.

Their car was barely parked next to the road, almost halfway into the driving lane, but no one was going to come around the bend at this hour.

John took Sherlock's hand and held it delicately. "I love you. I love you beyond all reason."

Sherlock smiled without looking at him. "We left reason behind a long time ago."

* * *

Sherlock stood on a large rock in the middle of the moor, trying to get a good look at the place. John, being the man he was, preferred to scope out the new territory with binoculars and a map.

"That is Baskerville," he said, pointing directly in front of him to the white, multi-buildinged facility with the fence surrounding it. Turning 180 degrees, he pointed again. "That is Grimpen Village, otherwise known as our tourist trap." John looked up to see Sherlock flash a grin at him. He went back to his map, staring down at it for a few seconds before looking a little to the left of Baskerville. "So that must be Dewer's Hollow."

"What's that?" Sherlock pointed a bit below Baskerville. John raised his binoculars and spotted a few red signs with black skulls on them.

"It looks like a minefield. It is a military facility, after all. They want to keep people out."

Sherlock smirked devilishly. "Or keep something in."

* * *

Upon entering Grimpen Village, John noticed two things that were quintessential to tourist towns: tour guides, and an expensive vegetarian restaurant. He wasn't complaining about the restaurant, since it was also a hotel, but the tour guide was a bit overdramatic. 'Stay off the moors at night if you value your lives'? There were so many other things people could be scared of that were _real_.

John checked his phone surreptitiously. No missed calls, no texts, not even from Mikey, who'd insisted on bothering him every week about Sherlock. Why not ask Sherlock himself? John was much more likely to kill Mycroft than Sherlock was anyway.

"Is my brother pushing his infernal company on you again?" Sherlock asked with a pout in his voice. John laughed once; Sherlock seemed to read his mind sometimes, but be utterly oblivious others.

"No. I was making sure he wouldn't bother us. We're on vacation," John said, pecking Sherlock's cheek. "Mikey doesn't belong on a vacation of any sort."

When they entered, no one looked up from their food, except the bartender/hotel manager, who motioned them over. Sherlock left John to get the room while he observed the entire restaurant. The bartender was nice enough, handing over a room key without much fuss. He noticed every time John watched Sherlock work, though.

"Mine's just the same," he said cheerfully. "Always looking around, as if he hasn't seen all this rubbish his whole life."

John's lips quirked up in a small smile. "Yeah?"

The bartender nodded. "You two make a lovely couple. Very aesthetic."

He barely managed to restrain his laugh as he asked, "On the map, there's a skull and crossbones. What does it mean?"

"Oh, that's the Great Grimpen Minefield, they call it. Surrounds Baskerville to keep the undesirables out, but they say if you break in, what happens to you is worse than getting blown up." The man shrugged. "Thank God for Henry and his demon hound, otherwise the town would be dead."

"Has anyone actually seen the hound?"

The man nodded. "Fletcher has. He leads the tour groups."

John nodded. "Thanks for the info." He turned around to realized Sherlock had already started walking outside and rushed to follow him. The bartender stared after him for a moment, a slight grin on his face.

All of the sudden, Sherlock was talking about a bet, a 50 quid bet, and John was very intrigued. Sherlock may have had all of his deductive powers, but betting was something John had learned to be very good at. Betting which sniper was going to shoot first, betting which of his mates was going to die first, betting who was going to win Britain's Got Talent, betting which mood James was in today. John could bet on people, and he knew Fletcher was someone to bet on.

"I've seen it!" Fletcher said. "Couldn't make much out."

Sherlock sighed annoyedly. "Of course you didn't."

"Nope, wait." Fletcher pulled out his phone and showed them a picture. It was a rather big dog, but Sherlock was unimpressed.

"Is that it? Not exactly proof, is it? Sorry John, I win."

"But that's not all." The kid frowned. "People don't like going up there, to the Hollow. It gives them a bad sort of feeling."

John knew Sherlock was probably going to say something derisive about ghosts so he pressed his finger to Sherlock's lips. They needed evidence from Fletcher, and John didn't want Sherlock scaring him off. he could be plenty scary later, when they broke into Baskerville.

"There's something out there, maybe from Baskerville, and people know it when they go to the Hollow. They have instinct, I have proof." Then Fletcher opened his backpack, and pulled out a molded piece of plaster. On it was a huge, clawed pawprint, as big as John's head at least.

John smirked. "We did say fifty?" Sherlock rolled his eyes and handed John 50 quid. They shared a bank account, so the money wasn't a big deal, but John had won this bet. He knew things unconsciously, where his lover knew things consciously, and that could only help them now.

* * *

They decided to go to Baskerville in the evening, so they had a few hours to kill. While taking the Demon Hound tour sounded outrageous and over exaggerated, Sherlock took John's hand and pulled them both into the tour group, acting every inch the interested traveler. John did his best to not laugh every time Sherlock imitated Fletcher or made ridiculous faces, or stared at the kid seriously. It was quite difficult.

Afterwards, the streets were clear of people, a small town with an early bedtime. John and Sherlock climbed the stairs to their hotel room, laughing, their feet tripped over each other's and their eyes glowing with happiness. John was forgetting and Sherlock was remembering and the whole world was nothing but this.

There were very few streetlights, the only one on the block situated just to the left of their window. But they could still see the sky, lit up with stars.

"Do you still know whether the Earth goes around the Sun?" John asked quietly, running his hands slowly up and down Sherlock's biceps.

"Why do I need to know that when I have you to tell me?"

John smiled softly. "I guess you're right."

No one spoke for a few more minutes before Sherlock said, "But I do know. The Earth goes around the Sun, along with seven other main planets and many dwarf planets. Earth is 4.57 billions years old. The main planets are Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter in order of diameter. The universe itself is 13.8 billion years old and began with the Big Bang."

"You studied, didn't you?" John wondered.

Sherlock looked down at John and replied, "I didn't study. I remembered, just for your benefit. I don't need to know this information, but I find that knowing you're proud of me is very gratifying."

"I'll always be proud of you, Sherlock," said John fiercely. "No matter what, you'll always be a wonder to me, you don't have to _try._ Every time I look at you, I am amazed. Nothing you can do in the future can change that."

"But maybe it will." Sherlock's voice was resigned and cold. "Maybe I'll hurt you, maybe I'll betray you for the greater good. What if that happens? What if I walk away from you?"

"I won't let you walk away from me. And even if you betray me, I will continue to love you. I will continue to hold on to you until I die of it." And John's voice was resigned and cold in return, for that was not a lie. Sherlock was all he had, all he wanted. If their lives had been different, and John was James instead, John would never let him go, never let him die. The game wouldn't end without them together, alive or not, entwined or not, in hatred or in love. Because they were every jagged puzzle piece the world had to offer, shoved into two bodies and tossed away, left to rot too far apart. As long as they were touching, the world could end.

Sherlock nipped John's neck carefully. "Do you still want to kill people that would hurt me?"

"In a second."

"Murder is always done for the same reasons. Money, power, jealousy, revenge, psychosis, and love. Who would have thought we'd be so pedestrian?"

John barely touched his lips to Sherlock's in return. "You did."

* * *

The next morning, they took the Jeep down to Baskerville.

Sherlock was driving this time, John in the passenger side with his arms crossed. "How are we going to get in? We don't have any clearance to enter your big brother's office, much less a high-security government experimental facility."

"You could get inside in thirty seconds flat," Sherlock retorted, motioning at the guards surrounding the complex and the barbed wire fences.

John cocked his head to the side for a moment, thinking. "Actually twenty seconds. I am rather famous Captain after all. One command and they'd be serving us tea on gold plates."

Sherlock snorted, then fixed his expression into something resembling blankness as he held out his pass to the guard at the gate.

"You have a specific pass into Baskerville?" John raised an eyebrow.

"Government access to all areas. It's my brother's." He wondered fleetingly what Mikey would think of his little brother right this moment. "I... _acquired_ it ages ago for this such purpose."

The guard came back, saying, "Welcome to Baskerville, Mr. Holmes." Sherlock gave John a _look_ and they drove through.

"Mycroft's name literally opens doors," John remarked. In the criminal world, when people heard the name the Beloved, they practically tripped over their own feet in an attempt to get away. No one so much as breathed the same air as him without James' wrath. John had wrath of his own, certainly, but James was so creative.

"I told you, he's the British Government." Sherlock drove slowly down the central road, watching for soldiers. Running someone over would probably get them kicked out faster. As he approached the main part of the complex, Sherlock whispered, "We probably have about twenty minutes before they realize something's wrong."

John nodded, getting out of the car as Sherlock did and shutting the door behind him. Sherlock turned up his coat collar and followed the red-bereted man to another Jeep, driven by a black-bereted Corporal who got out of his car rapidly, asking, "Are we in trouble?"

He could have laughed at the Corporal's inexperience, but Sherlock answered ahead of him. "'Are we in trouble, _sir'."_

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." He introduced himself, and then said something stupid about never getting inspections. John knew that there was always a higher-up, and if the higher-up wanted something, they got it. No matter how important an army member thought themselves, there was always someone giving orders, either under the radar or obvious, and unless one wanted to die, one let the higher-ups get what they wanted. Currently, the younger brother to the British Government and James Moriarty's second-in-command were in charge, and Corporal Lyons would do well to remember that.

"You've never heard of a spot-check?" John asked. "Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers." They saluted to each other.

"Major Barrymore won't be pleased, sir. He'll want to see you both." Since when had not rolling his eyes become so difficult?

"I'm afraid we won't have time for that, we'll need the full tour right away. Carry on." The man began to protest, but john interjected, "That's an order, Corporal," and they were in.

Both the Corporal and Sherlock swiped their passes to get in the door. The twenty minutes started now. As John and Sherlock entered, Sherlock got a devious look on his face as he said, "Nice touch, _Captain_."

"I haven't pulled rank in ages," John confessed.

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Oh, yeah."

The first floor was full of animal cages, laboratory workers, and white, white lights. John could hardly stand it. The most colorful thing was perhaps Corporal Lyons' army uniform, a green and brown speck in a sea of foam and metal. Apparently there were 'lots' of animals and none of them could possibly escape because they'd have to know how to use the lift. Very useless information, really.

John's guard immediately went up when he noticed the older man in the lab coat coming towards them. He introduced himself as Dr. Frankland, and John had a funny feeling about him. He didn't seem like he could be trusted. At least he left after a few sentences of small talk.

The Corporal provided them with more useless information as to how far down the lift goes (pretty far) and what was down there (bins). Also gave a vague answer as to what sort of weaponry they were making (biological and chemical of one sort or another). Who trained these people? Finally, they were led to a Dr. Stapleton, whose name both John and Sherlock recognized. Upon learning she mixed genes, Sherlock understood the Bluebell case and began spouting off.

"Why did Bluebell have to die, Dr. Stapleton? Disappeared from inside a locked hutch, clearly an inside job."

"You reckon?" Dr. Stapleton said scathingly.

"Because it glowed in the dark." Sherlock looked at his watch and John knew that time was running out. They'd have a lot of angry people on their hands and John was interested how they'd handle such a security breach. It almost made him smile to think about.

"Well, I think we've seen enough for now, Corporal." As they walked out, John schooled his expression and frowned like a proper soldier. Sherlock had what he needed and he could always use John to break in again. Today was quite successful.

Unfortunately, as they left, they ran into Major Barrymore, who looked none too pleased, and Dr. Frankland, who played along with their lie. One piece was missing here. John just had to figure out what it was.

* * *

 **Most of the dialogue was taken directly from the show. Please read + review!**


	23. Force

According to John, Sherlock turned his coat collar up to look mysterious, which apparently went with his cheekbones. John had this glint in his eye as he said it, a very devious glint that Sherlock hoped Dr. Frankland would take no notice of. That man seemed strange. He may have gotten them out of trouble, but there was something wrong about him. Just a feeling, and Sherlock hated hunches without evidence.

On the drive back to Grimpen Village, Sherlock explained the case of the glowing rabbit, speculating Dr. Stapleton might have something to do with their current case. He didn't like that woman either, but he didn't like most people. Perhaps everyone was suspicious in this instance, except John and himself, who only learned of the Hound yesterday.

John kept checking his phone. And Sherlock didn't know why.

So far, he'd noticed that attempting to deduce John was futile at best, given his expertise in hiding things from his time in the army (session of torture lasting weeks, didn't give away any information, has kept tight-lipped since then, thinking every situation could be dangerous, scanning the room for aggressors, cautious of concealed weaponry, but not afraid of it; in summation, someone who'd been through a great deal of trauma and adapted quickly to it, creating habits that followed him into everyday civilian life). Trying to read John was like trying to understand a choose-your-own-adventure book in its entirety by reading just the first sentence. There were too many possibilities as to what he could be thinking.

It was a very good thing that John had begun to open up, but Sherlock still knew there were memories, past experiences, that John wouldn't tell him: the reasons for the cuts on his back and legs, the bullet marks in his chest and shoulder, the broken ribs, the broken arms and wrists; the far-off looks he would get when Sherlock mentioned Moriarty; the phone calls in the middle of the night that John leaves the room to take, the text messages from his friend Jimmy, who seemed to know John better than Sherlock did; even the way he scanned the newspaper every morning spoke of careful routine, careful enough not to give his true purpose away.

And Sherlock trusted him, he irrevocably trusted him. But sometimes he wondered.

They were on their way to Henry's rather large house, a house inherited from his rather rich father who enjoyed a trust fund a bit more than he was intended to, given the extravagant, castle-like structure. Sherlock rolled his eyes as he rang the doorbell, pushing John's peculiarities to the back of his mind.

Henry invited them in with a small smile on his face. He had ridiculously large ears, and Sherlock wondered if he'd ever met anyone called Alonso. He'd met a man called Alonso once, in a bar about three years ago. But they were clearly not related, although it would be more interesting if they were. Henry could use proper excitement in his life besides a hound from hell.

The robin's egg blue of the walls was meant to be a calming color, Sherlock observed. Henry had painted them himself when he got full ownership rights to the house. His kitchen was white and dull, bearing no positive comparison to their kitchen at home.

He looked over at John. Sherlock had fondly called the flat home.

Oh, he was gone. He'd been gone long before this, perhaps the moment John had walked into the lab, but he knew.

Sherlock took sugar in his coffee as Henry tried to explain the two words he'd been seeing in his dreams, Liberty and In. Liberty In Death was an obvious assumption, but one he felt he had to make for John's benefit.

"Sherlock, you have a plan?" John asked.

Stupid question, of course he had a plan. "Yes." He tried not to sound too patronizing.

"What is it, then?"

For a very intelligent army doctor, John had his moments. "We take you back onto the moor," Sherlock said, facing Henry, "and see if anything attacks you."

John gave him a questioning look. "What?"

"You're going to take me out there? At night?" Henry protested.

"That's not a plan," John scorned, giving him the look that said, 'caring is perfectly okay, why are you being such an arse?'.

"If there's a monster out there, the only thing to do is find out where it lives. Monsters have to be hunted down, we can't just wait for it to saunter through the door," he said sharply.

John's blue eyes were dark now, dark with something ugly that Sherlock had seen before. But there was no point in him asking about it, so he didn't.

They were going out on that moor tonight, whether John liked it or not.

* * *

He was scared, he was so scared. The air felt like poison and his lungs couldn't take in enough of it. He could feel the adrenaline, his eyes dilating, his fear rushing through his muscles.

And there was a hound. There was a hound and it was ripping Sherlock's chest to shreds with one look.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't deduce. There was nothing to deduce.

There was only the dark, and laughter he thought he'd locked away playing in his mind.

And evil. Something truly evil.

* * *

Sherlock sat in the armchair by the fireplace of the vegetarian restaurant, his hands pressed together under his chin as he tried to sort through what he'd seen.

He was still terrified, still so afraid, and he didn't know why, and that was perhaps the most frightening thought of all.

John came back to where Sherlock was sitting with a glass of Scotch. "Henry's practically manic, totally convinced there's some sort of mutant super-dog out there. But if there were mutant super-dogs, we'd know about it. They'd be for sale."

When Sherlock didn't answer, as he didn't want to answer, John tried to take his hand, but Sherlock jerked away. A hurt look fleetingly crossing his face, John started to ask if he was alright (exactly the kind of thing a person trying to fake caring would say). Cutting him off, Sherlock snarled, "I'm fine."

"No, you're not." John folded his arms (John was lying, John didn't care, whoever cared about Sherlock Holmes?, he was faking his love and care to ensnare him, to have him for a political reason, to control him, John wasn't sincere, he never had been, why did Sherlock keep trying to fool himself?).

"I saw it too," Sherlock spat out. "I saw it too, Henry was right, there is a hound."

John's lips parted and began to form a 'you're shitting me, now tell the truth' expression. (When had John become so derisive, so quick to dismiss?) "Sherlock, we have to be...rational about this. You, of all people, know. Let's just stick to the facts." (And why was John saying his own words back to him so frightening? John didn't believe him, had never believed him, wanted to get under his skin to prove him wrong, to destroy his logical mindset.)

"When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," Sherlock muttered, stealing John's Scotch and throwing it back, ignoring the burning path it made down his throat. The glass, despite being empty, still had enough residual liquid for Sherlock to watch his hand shaking it back and forth. His hands were shaking, like John's had when Sherlock first met him. (Or was that a lie too? Was that another trick to reel him in, watch the genius fall for the army doctor who could lie better than anyone Sherlock had ever known?) "Look at me, John. I'm afraid."

John attempted to interject, but Sherlock plowed over him. "I'm always been able to keep myself distant, to force myself from...feeling. But look, you see?" He gestured to his wobbling hand. "My body's betraying me." (It had already betrayed him, wanting John so much it fell into his arms without pause or hesitation. Without instinctual awareness, he'd trusted someone, someone he knew had the ability to lie to him. How could he have been so foolish?)

"Interesting, aren't they? Emotions. The grease on the lens, the fly in the ointment," he said, and every word had so much bite. (He wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for John, if it weren't for John, he'd be the way he was. Safer. Safe within the bounds of his mind palace. John had something to hide, he knew it. John had hidden something from him and meant to destroy Sherlock. Why else would he be here?)

"Okay, okay." John held his hands up in what was supposed to be a placating gesture. "I think you've been a bit wired lately, you know you have, sweetheart, and you got yourself a bit worked up, that's all."

"Worked up?" Sherlock wondered derisively. (And now John didn't believe him, John thought he was crazy, John wanted to discredit him, take his abilities away, he wanted to make sure no believed him ever again.)

"It was dark and scary!"

"Me?" And his voice was dangerous, because he felt dangerous. "There's nothing wrong with _me._ " And that was John's fatal mistake. "You want me to prove it? Of course you do. Those things I said weren't the whole truth when we met, I didn't want to scare you off. You were tortured in Afghanistan, two weeks, one person, used knifes to hurt you, practically flayed your skin. You were rescued, you didn't escape, and you felt indebted to your rescuer, so you stayed with him for approximately two years afterward, helping him in the army, but not just in places the army is currently stationed, you went to America more than once, so probably a private person not connected to the government. Only your shoulder wound happened in the army, the rest happened after, in your service to the private man. The psychosomatic limp is not completely related to your shoulder, it's also related to meeting new people, you don't trust people, so you make yourself look crippled so they will overlook you, a habit from your time in service. But why? Why do you have all these idiosyncrasies, why did you worm your way into my company: you still talk to him, he wants me watched, you never loved me, you only want to hurt me and ruin my career, to discredit me, to laugh at the fact that the great Sherlock Holmes fell so far."

With every word, he spoke that much faster, his phrases tripping over themselves because _he knew now_ that John never wanted him.

But John's face fell instead of twisting in malice. He looked sad, not angry or wicked. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry."

"You've done everything," Sherlock scoffed, "everything perfectly to make a fool out of me. I was so blind. You never cared, no one does. Go back to your boss, I'm sure he would love to hear about how you failed to _beat me._ "

When Sherlock looked up again, John was gone, with the faint imprint of a kiss left on his cheek.

* * *

He didn't sleep that night, didn't go back to their shared bed at the overly expensive hotel, because he couldn't bear to look at John in the intimate way he'd been seeing him before. Instead, he wandered the moors, not going back down into Dewer's Hollow, just wandering. He walked kilometer after kilometer, refusing to acknowledge his exhaustion (remembering John's arms coiled around his waist), and a thought struck him.

Obviously, the evidence of his own eyes couldn't be trusted, so there must have been some sort of hallucinogen, some sort of drug that caused him to see the hound. All of them had eaten the same things, Sherlock was absolutely sure, except John didn't take sugar in his coffee. The hallucinogen had to have been in the sugar.

Once morning came, he rushed over to Henry's house, intent on making John a cup of coffee. They still had to pretend to trust each other until the mission was over, so John would try to get back into Sherlock's good books by taking anything he offered. He had to test somewhere, though. Where could he test if the sugar worked?

Sherlock smiled cuttingly. Mycroft would have to part from his beloved all-access pass once again.

They'd agreed to meet at Henry's house at eight am, so arriving at seven-thirty should have been enough to perfectly make the coffee. He barged into Henry's house as soon as the door opened, without so much as a hello. He was on a mission.

His whirlwind slowed, however, when he asked, "Why 'hound? Why did you say the word 'hound'? I only took the case because of that word."

Henry was no help at all, and there was no coffee made at that time, so Sherlock ordered Henry to make coffee and swooped back out of the house, coat trailing behind him. (John said it looked mysterious and dramatic.) (Shut up.)

Of course, the one person he had no desire to see was standing in the graveyard, looking through his notebook and periodically writing things down.

And all the animosity he had been carrying for the past twelve hours dissipated with that one look at John.

He didn't understand it; one moment, he was angry at John, completely pissed and betrayed and hurt, and the next, all of it was gone. He couldn't remember why John would have ever hurt him that way; he couldn't remember his reason for so deeply slicing John open with his deductions.

Why would he have done that? To John, of all people.

As Sherlock walked over, John's eyes lifted from his notebook and his expression shuttered closed. Sherlock knew John wasn't going to speak first, so he asked quietly, "Did you get any information from Dr. Mortimer?"

"No. Dr. Frankland came by and deterred her from speaking to me." John stood up stiffly and started walking briskly back to Henry's house, slamming his notebook shut beforehand.

"I just wanted to say-"

"I get it. You don't trust me, but you could have just told me that. You could have told me that months ago, and I would have gotten out of your life. For now, though, we're stuck until this case is over," John interjected formally. "Now, we have data to collect."

And why did his cold tone, the cold tone Sherlock himself had used so many times, sting that much?

Sherlock followed him numbly across the field back to Henry's small castle, but had to reach out and stop John from knocking on the door. "What do you want now?"

He carefully leaned forward, placing two fingers under John's chin to lift it up, and kissed him. Sherlock pulled away after three seconds, silent.

"Why did you do that?" John asked quietly, the same undertones of hurt and sadness in his voice that he'd been carrying when he left the restaurant last night.

"Because I didn't mean to say those things," Sherlock breathed. "I was scared and angry and I took it out on you. I trust you, I always have, and you have given me no reason not to. I'm sorry, John."

John closed his eyes and took two deep breaths. "Okay. Alright."

"Do you forgive me?"

"God knows I'll always forgive you, Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock smiled, for the first time in twelve hours. "I'll make you some coffee."

The corners of John's lips turned up, just slightly. "Alright."

* * *

Not only did John find letters, U.M.Q.R.A., but also receipts for a great deal of meat for a vegetarian restaurant. The first proved that Hound could be H.O.U.N.D. instead, and that the owners of the restaurant were hiding something. Of course, just as all of these terribly interesting developments were happening, Mycroft's liaison, Lestrade, showed up.

Sherlock had liked Lestrade, if begrudgingly. Lestrade had given him puzzles, allowed him access to cold cases, paid him even when he didn't want to be paid. But there was something going on between Mycroft and Lestrade. There were certain cases missing from the archives, certain things that the ID he'd stolen from Lestrade couldn't get into, but Lestrade himself could. It screamed interference, specifically Mycroft's.

Not only that, but whenever Sherlock mentioned Lestrade's wife, he grew stiff and defensive, but not enough for a man whose wife was cheating on him. He was worried for another reason. Somehow, Lestrade's wife and Mycroft were connected; Sherlock had been thinking it over briefly a few times, less than he probably should have. He should reopen that case.

Lestrade played his Detective Inspector part very well, practically scaring the owners into telling them that they really had had a dog, a large dog, but they lied when they said the dog had been put down. It still roamed the moors, which created more rumors, but what Sherlock and Henry had seen looked different.

His theory about the hallucinogen was most likely correct, but he still had to test the sugar.

Well, back to Baskerville. He had to call his brother.

Dialing the number, Sherlock pasted a fake smile on his face and said enthusiastically, "Hello, brother dear! How are you?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes, Sherlock could tell. "You want my all-access pass. Certainly, just pass the phone to John, will you?"

"Of course," he simpered, handing the phone to John, who took it quizzically.

"Hello?" He paused. "Really? Good to know." John cocked his head. "You stalk me enough to know why my friends won't answer my phone calls. No wonder I don't like you. Enjoy your tea." He hung up and threw the phone back. "Does your brother always stalk people close to you?"

"He kidnapped Lestrade for a day, once. Tried to threaten Mrs. Hudson."

John giggled. "And how well did that work, exactly?"

Sherlock laughed, too. "Not well at all."

"He gave you access for twenty-four hours. He said not to waste them."

"Perfect. To Baskerville we go."

And if he watched John walk away, observing the signs of carefully restrained fear and fury, he didn't say anything. It was just his imagination, it had to be.

* * *

 **Bringing in the suspicions.** **Please review!**


	24. Pompeii

He'd never hated Mikey as much as he did driving up to Baskerville for the second time. Mikey was a slimy git, John had already known that, but torture?

James was too strong to talk, John understood that a long time ago, and Mikey was too smart to not comprehend the mindset of one of his only true competitors, so why had he even bothered? What did Mikey think he could get out of James that would warrant such a pointless venture?

And torture. John hated Mikey for the torture.

Sherlock kept looking over at him; John registered the worry in his eyes, but ignored it. He needed some time to himself, just a few minutes.

"We should probably divide and conquer," Sherlock was saying, reverting his gaze back to the road. "You can start on the first floor, I'll start on the bottom, and we'll meet in the middle. If we don't find anything, we'll have to think of something else."

"Okay."

* * *

Once he reached the first floor, the elevator door closed behind him with an air of finality. John slipped his key-card in his back pocket, the one without his phone in it, as phones disrupt the magnetic strip on each key-card. Taking a few steps forward, John analyzed his surroundings. All the animals seemed to either be asleep or moved to another portion of the facility. There weren't very many doors on the floor, but the one he spotted didn't have any other security measures besides a card-swipe machine. Easy.

Sliding his card until the machine flashed green, John carefully opened the orange glass door, noting the steam coming from a broken pipe. They should have really gotten that fixed, who knew what kinds of bio-hazards could be lurking. It was just sloppy. A bit more investigation revealed nothing of interest, at least to John. Of course, Sherlock, if he were here, could have pointed out so many seemingly obvious things that John tended to miss.

His mind flew back to the night before, Sherlock practically spitting acid into his ears. He knew Sherlock had been scared, but that didn't mean he wasn't afraid Sherlock would eventually find him out. John was good at hiding things, and the fact he'd managed to hide his uglier parts from Sherlock this long was worthy of praise, but no matter what he did, Sherlock would realize it. Sherlock would kill him, John was a criminal, after all.

"Calm down," he muttered to himself. "Nothing to be afraid of."

Exiting the small room, he scanned the rest of the room for anything suspicious, of which there was none, and headed for the elevator once more. However, when he tried to swipe his card, it was rejected with an obnoxious wailing noise.

When he tried three more times, the results were no different.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, John called Sherlock. The card problems were probably just a glitch leftover from Major Barrymore's wrath the day before. "Hey, did you find anything?" Sherlock asked.

"No, but my key-card has stopped working. Can you ask someone to get it working again?"

"Yes, of course." He paused. "I'll see you in a little while."

"Yeah." John smiled. "I'll see you."

He hung up and put his phone back in his pocket, turning the key-card around in his hands for a minute. Surely the people upstairs had it fixed by now. But before he could attempt to slide it again, all the bright white lights turned on, along with a screeching alarm.

John could scarcely hear himself think with the sensory overload, but he somehow reached the door and swiped his card, which still didn't work. Instead of trying again, John clapped his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, and waited, hoping some of the light and sound would subside.

When everything shut back down, John was left in near pitch darkness and silence.

(He tricked you.)

John fumbled in his pocket for the torch he'd used last night. When he finally found it, he flicked it on and scanned what little of his surroundings he could see. There was nothing out there, there couldn't be. (You haven't seen the hound, it might not be real.)

(But he said he'd seen it.)

John walked forward, because there was nothing else to do except move forward. Everything else could jump out at him and rip his throat out. He knew what that was like. He'd watched before.

(He knew what he was doing, putting you in here. It's a trap, can't you see that?)

He checked to make sure his gun hadn't left his jacket, he checked to make sure there were bullets in it. John checked the knives in his calf holster and remembered sharpening them just before leaving for Grimpen Village.

(Sherlock would know which weapons you were carrying. Of course he'd know.)

He wouldn't call Sherlock. John wasn't a coward; he'd dealt with much worse than this. This was only a possibility, and he'd dealt with certainty after certainty. John had no reason to be scared.

No reason to be frightened of an empty room.

(Liar.)

He pulled the gun from his jacket and cocked it, holding it as steadily as he could. There weren't many things that could survive a direct shot; even a large dog like the one Sherlock and Henry had described wasn't invincible. One shot was all he needed.

(It's a trap, you know that. Sherlock trapped you in here, he knows what James wants you to do and he's going to kill you for it.)

(Doesn't it make more sense than whatever other lie you were telling yourself?)

John carefully maneuvered himself into one of the cages. The animal could only bend the bars, it had a small chance of getting to him before he could shoot it. The lock clicked, and John let out a quiet exhale. He was safer now. This was easier to defend and easier to keep himself safe. Being out in the open like he had been was more dangerous than locking himself in a cage.

And then he heard a growl.

A sheet covered the cage, so he couldn't see outside, but he knew what that sound meant.

It took everything in him not to pick up his phone and call Sherlock.

The growl sounded again, but John only pointed his gun in its direction. He could end this whole case as soon as the animal came into his sights. John just wanted all of this to be over. He couldn't stand a single moment more of Sherlock's mean side turned on him. That was what would happen, he knew that. But he could prolong it.

"Hey, Johnny," a tired, cracking voice mumbled.

"James?" he whispered as quietly as he could back. Someone could be listening.

"Yeah. Did you hear about Mikey?"

John sighed. "I did. I'm sorry, James. You know I would have come and gotten you had I known where you were. I just thought you were ignoring me."

"I could never ignore you for that long, honey." He paused. "You shouldn't talk to me. Your boyfriend could be listening."

"I can't just forget about the part of my life with you in it!" John hissed. "He shouldn't expect me to, either. I'm tired of lying."

James let out a long breath. "I told you to kill him. And you never told me no."

"I never thought I could tell you no."

"Baby, that's no excuse. You kill because you like it, not because you're afraid of me. You stopped being afraid of me. Right now, you're more afraid of Sherlock not accepting you for who you are than you were ever afraid of me. What have the voices been telling you?"

Fingering the trigger of his gun, John replied softly, "Sherlock is the one who trapped me in here."

"I'm just another voice, you know that, don't you?"

"Yeah." James was far away, John knew that. But he still wanted to talk to him.

"And what have I been telling you all along?"

"Sherlock doesn't want the ugly parts of me."

James made an affirmative noise. "Maybe we're wrong. For your sake, I hope we're all wrong. But this is evidence-based. I know Sherlock, I've known him for a long time. I knew you were someone he would notice, you're too interesting for him to pass up, but he's too narrow-minded. He thinks in simple rights and wrongs, he solves crimes for God's sake! He has no concept of grays, and you are full of grays. I wanted you to see that, to see that no one will understand you as well as me. But you fell in love with him, and that's okay, Johnny. Everybody falls in love with people they're not supposed to. I just wanted you to be careful."

John snorted. "You see how that turned out."

James laughed with him. "Yeah. Nothing to be done now, of course."

When their laughter ended, John set his gun on the floor. "I'm done with this. I'm going to tell him today. I am done with being afraid of him."

"Please don't get yourself hurt, John. He might hurt you."

"I can handle him." But he didn't say it as confidently as he would have liked.

"Alright." James' footsteps echoed across the floor as he began to walk away. "Oh, and you should probably lie about what you saw. They're expecting you to see the hound like the rest of them. Come see me when you get out of here. I missed you in that cell."

John smiled. "I will."

His phantom left, and what stayed were the growling noises. But there was no hound, and James had said it was about fear.

Suddenly, it hit him.

The hound was simply a vessel, something easy to be afraid of, but Sherlock hadn't said much about the hound after he experienced it. His sharp words were to do with John's perceived betrayal of him. John hadn't even seen the hound, he'd just heard the noises it was supposed to make, his real fears were James and the other voices telling him Sherlock could never care about him with all the ugly parts and all the people he'd murdered.

The hound wasn't anything at all. There was something trying to frighten them, and succeeding, but not a dog. This all existed within their own minds.

"John?" someone asked through the cage bars, and John pointed the gun at them. But it was only Sherlock.

"Hey. Thanks for getting here so quickly."

"What happened? You're clearly terrified."

And John lied.

* * *

Sherlock eventually figured out the facts about the HOUND project with some clever deducing that John didn't have the heart to compliment. Dr. Stapleton looked quite taken aback at the antics of her coworker, Dr. Frankland, who, as they'd learned, had been involved with the project. Simple, case almost closed.

They had to find Henry soon though, if Dr. Frankland was after him, which he most certainly was.

Sherlock, Lestrade, and John ran out into the night towards Dewer's Hollow. Henry had to be close by, there was a great deal of sentimental significance to ending his own life in the place his father had died. There was only so much time before Henry decided to do something drastic.

Despite the fact he enjoyed killing people who deserved it, John didn't want Henry to die. He didn't deserve this; he was a nice kid who'd gotten too tangled up by Dr. Frankland for anyone to believe him. And now, he had nothing except his nightmares. John knew how that felt.

"Henry!" he called once he spotted him. "Put the gun down!"

"No! The hound is following me! I can't let it follow me anymore, I can't let it rip me to shreds too!"

"Henry," John said quietly, calmly, as if comforting a child. "The hound is just a dog. It's feeding off of your fear, it fed off of all our fear. It's just fear, Henry. There's nothing but that. You can overcome fear, can't you? You can face fear, and then you won't be afraid anymore. That's all you have to do, you can shake off the drug's influence."

He stayed quiet as John stepped closer, carefully and gently removing the gun from Henry's hands. "There's nothing to be scared of," John said, putting the safety back on the gun and putting it in the other pocket of his jacket. "Nothing to be scared of."

"But there is, honey." John whipped around to find James standing a few meters behind him. But when he looked harder, he found it wasn't James, it was a man wearing a gas mask and a lab coat. Gas mask.

"The drug is in the fog!" Sherlock shouted, and John covered Henry's mouth. He tried his best to keep Henry away from where Sherlock and Dr. Frankland were fighting. When the dog appeared at the top of the hill, John shot it down, holding Henry back from it the whole time.

Sherlock ran off, chasing the doctor and before he came back, John heard an explosion. He kept Henry calm as best he could, but all of his instincts told him to run and find Sherlock, to make sure he was okay. Turns out, he didn't need to. The explosion had only killed Dr. Frankland. Sherlock returned with his battered-hero aura surrounding him. John would have smiled, but the case was over. He could no longer avoid telling Sherlock the truth.

"John, we need to pack."

He sighed in response. "I know. Just let me make sure Henry gets home safe, and then I'll be back at the hotel."

Sherlock nodded and began to walk back to Grimpen Village without another word. John wondered if he'd noticed everything John wasn't saying. But then, he hadn't realized before.

* * *

In the morning, with their tiny suitcases packed and the hotel key returned, John and Sherlock went down to have breakfast.

"I had wondered why you weren't affected, and I knew we'd eaten all the same things since we'd arrived in Grimpen Village except one thing: you don't take sugar in your coffee."

John raised an eyebrow at the beginning of Sherlock's explanation. "Go on."

"I prepared the coffee for you with the sugar from Henry's cupboard, but I tested it after I found you in the first floor lab, and it was just ordinary sugar. And yet, you still reacted to the fear toxin, so where else could it have come from? I analyzed all the other variables and determined the mist in the lab made you react, and the key stimuli."

All of the sudden, things started to make a picture out of the unconnected puzzle pieces. And John began to get angry. "You experimented on me?"

Sherlock nodded. "It was for the sake of the investigation."

And his nonchalance, his simple apathy to what he'd done set John off, but he responded with a deadly soft voice. "You purposely manipulated the lab in order to make me think the hound had gotten in. You made my key-card not work, and locked all the doors, and provided sensory overload, is that correct?"

"I had to know why you hadn't seen the hound, why the drug didn't affect you. It turned out you were just in the wrong area."

"You would willingly put me through that much just to test one of your theories?"

"Of course."

John knew he was seething, but he didn't care. Not anymore. "You were so scared back in Dewer's Hollow, and you thought to yourself, 'well, obviously John would love for this to happen to him'?"

Sherlock cocked his curly head at John. "I don't understand your tone of voice."

"Was it revenge? Hm? For me making you feel so weak, so susceptible to sentiment that you would make me feel like that too? Why the hell would you do that to me?"

"It was just an experiment; I had to understand what had happened that night."

John stood up. "What the hell did I do to you to make you think you had to make me scared, treat me like one of your body parts or chemical bombs? I'm a person who loves you, and you would willingly make me take out every weapon I own because I was so scared something was after me? How could you watch me, like a rat in a maze, running your course, doing what you want, seeing awful things, just to satisfy your curiosity? How could you do that to me?"

Sherlock stood up as well, but the confusion didn't leave his face. "You understand the need to get the facts straight."

"I am not a fact!" John shouted, and people were staring at them, but he didn't care. He was tired of keeping everything ugly bottled up. "I am not just something you can catalog and set aside on a bookshelf, I am a person! I am a person that was shoved into a room full of his greatest fears, and dammit, I should have known!"

"John-"

"James told me you were trying to trap me, and I didn't listen! I thought you would never do that, I thought it was just my fear talking! But it wasn't! It was real! You want me trapped, you want me contained, you want me out of your way because I'm not the good man you want me to be! James was right about you!"

But then he realized what he'd said without meaning to. He saw it wash over Sherlock's face, poison his eyes, and sew John's lips shut.

Sherlock knew now.

"The mysterious friend you've been working for since he saved your life two years ago is James Moriarty."

"Yes."

Sherlock put his head in his hands. "You've been lying to me since the day we met."

"Yes. I thought you would hate me. And I liked you."

"The kidnapping?"

John huffed. "James neglected to tell me about that. He can be a brat, really he can."

"The Beloved?"

"I always was his favorite."

"Irene Adler?" Sherlock's voice broke on her name.

"She's a friend from work. Mikey didn't tell the truth; she didn't die. I sent her and her wife to America, where no one with bad intent could find them. Kate's pregnant, I couldn't let them be found, Sherlock."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

John sighed. He could be free from all his burdens with his next words, so he chose them wisely. "My original mission was to make you fall in love with me and then kill you. When I met you, I realized I couldn't do that. James found out not long after and accepted it. You're the closest thing he's had to an equal, but he won't kill you himself if I ask him not to. I just haven't been able to ask him, because your brother's been torturing him." His last sentence had more bite than he'd meant to use, but he hated Mycroft, and it was pointless to lie about that anymore.

"I'll talk to Mycroft," Sherlock said, but he wouldn't look at John, and he didn't say anything else.

"Sherlock?" John took a step forward, and Sherlock took a step back. "Sherlock, please say something." Sherlock removed his hands from his face, but he looked at the rental car instead of John. "Sherlock," John breathed. "Please."

"What do you want me to say?" The temperature outside could have dropped twenty degrees with Sherlock's tone.

"Nothing untrue."

"Like you did?"

That hurt. "James never lies to me, don't you treat me any different than he does."

Sherlock laughed, but it cut like it was only supposed to when he laughed at people he deemed inferior. It appeared John had taken that place. "You used me and took advantage of me, or was that the first time you fucked a client?" John winced. "You made me believe someone actually cared about me without an ulterior motive, and then you ripped the bandage off and left me. You disgust me; I can't believe I stayed with you this long."

"Is there anything else?" John asked, feet frozen to the ground.

"No, I think that about covers it." Sherlock stalked away, suitcase in hand. John still couldn't move, so he sat on the ground and listened to the rush of noise flowing around him. Lestrade's voice, the owners of the hotel and restaurant, passersby, the sound of the rental car driving away, all of it flooded his ears, but one voice was clearer than the rest.

"John?" his inner James asked. "Are you okay?"

John put his head between his knees.

* * *

 **Sorry about the long update. Real life is annoying. :P Please tell me what you thought.**


	25. Explosion

_What the hell happened between you two? -GL_

 **It doesn't have any bearing on my working cases, so you shouldn't ask me that. -SH**

 _Avoidance tactics. Very classy. -GL_

 **Says an incompetent liar by omission: you've been conspiring with my cake-glutton brother to dig into my business. -SH**

 _Because you won't tell any of us what's going on! -GL_

 _John's been in and out of my flat day and night and I'd love to know why. -GL_

 _...You didn't kick him out of your flat, did you? -GL_

 **No. -SH**

 **He left on his own. -SH**

* * *

 _Sherlock's being an avoiding prat. -GL_

It's a fairly common state for him. -JW

 _I would say that he's never been an avoiding prat about you, but I'd be lying. -GL_

 _This time's different, isn't it? -GL_

I can admit I fucked up. In a big way. But he...he fucked up too. -JW

I contemplate punching him in the face daily. -JW

 _Amen to that! -GL_

 _But seriously. Any details? Any at all? Mycroft is prodding me to get to the bottom of this too. And he's much more obnoxious than I am. -GL_

You tell that slimy bastard Mikey anything, and I will introduce you to my sniper rifles. -JW

 _You have to give me *something* other than 'we both fucked up'. -GL_

...I lied to him. A very big, very illegal lie. And I refuse to tell you more than that. -JW

 _Fine. What did he do? -GL_

He made me think he loved me. -JW

* * *

 _Hey, feel free to explain why you practically eviscerated Anderson at the crime scene today. It was unnecessary and beneath you. -GL_

 **His face prevented me from solving the murder within the first few minutes. The weasel deserved it. -SH**

 _Bullshit. You're just pissed because John's not there to be your lighting board or whatever. -GL_

 **Sounding board and reflector of light. -SH**

 _Correcting me won't change anything. Has he texted you? -GL_

 **Why would he text me? Why would I text him for that matter? -SH**

 _OH, IDK. Maybe because HE MISSES YOU. He's downright pathetic-looking at the moment. And always. -GL_

 **Chat-speak is hardly professional. -SH**

 **Also, if he misses me so much why did he leave in the first place? -SH**

 _He thought he wasn't wanted anymore. -GL_

 **You don't know what he did to me, you don't get to judge me through his eyes. -SH**

 _Well, what I do know is that he lied to you. I wasn't sure that was possible, but he did. And he feels really shitty about it. -GL_

 **He could be lying to you right now and you wouldn't even notice. -SH**

 _People can't fake real heartbreak. I would know. And so would you. -GL_

 **If anyone could do it, John could. -SH**

* * *

 _I've only seen this level of bitchiness on drug-addled, mid-twenties Sherlock. -GL_

I swear, if he's on drugs again... -JW

 _Nah. -GL_

 _But he might as well be. -GL_

Please get him tested when you can. -JW

And yes, I hear the *very* *subtle* accusatory tone. But he's better off without me. -JW

 _He was better off *with* you. -GL_

He doesn't need me or want me or love me anymore. I lied, he used me in return. It's done. Leave me alone. -JW

 _I'm pretty sure you still want me to feed you though, right? -GL_

Nope. I'm moving out. I won't be here much longer. -JW

The lies caught up to me. I have a chance to fix at least some of this shit, so I'm going to take it. -JW

 _John. -GL_

 _Those aren't good words, John. -GL  
_

 _Where are you going? -GL_

* * *

 _He's gone, and I don't know where he is, Sherlock. -GL_

 **Bully for him. He probably skipped the country. -SH**

 _I don't think so. He said he was going to fix things. Do you know what he means? -GL_

 **I know it's improbable that he can fix things. -SH**

 _But not impossible? -GL_

 **...I didn't mean to type that. -SH**

 _The hell you didn't! -GL_

 **If you invoke the all-around idiocy of Freud, we will never speak again. -SH**

 _Your ex has been threatening me too, so don't think you're somehow menacing or whatever. -GL_

 **He threatened you? -SH**

 _Hey, calm down. It was a week ago, and he just really didn't want your brother poking around in your business. I'm sure you can identify with that sentiment. -GL_

 **Mycroft is indeed a pushy, nosy bastard. -SH**

 **But he may have reason to get into John's business. Not that he ever did before. -SH**

 _Those better not be warnings of illegality. You think Mycroft is just worried about you? -GL_

 **Mycroft would never worry about me. Besides, he has a degree of guilt in this situation as much as John does. -SH**

 _Should I keep ignoring the blatant red flags here and wait for you to sort it out or do you guys need backup? -GL_

 **Stay out of this. -SH**

* * *

 _John. -GL_

 _John. -GL_

* * *

 _John John John John John John -GL_

* * *

 _JOOOOOOOOHN. -GL_

 _JOHN JOHN JOHN John John John john john john. -GL_

 _I could do this all day -GL_

 _I really could, work is very slow today. -GL_

 _Nobody's being murdered. Or at least nobody's finding any bodies. -GL_

I assure you my dear Detective Inspector, it is the latter. 

_JOHN. WHY DIDN'T YOU ANSWER ME?! IT'S BEEN TWO WEEKS. -GL_

Sorry, I'm not John :-P I stole my loyal kitten's phone while he was sleeping

 _Oooookay. -GL_

Since Johnny considers you a friend, I'll tell you a *little* *secret* ;)

Do you wanna hear it?

 _Is he in trouble? -GL_

HMMMMMM not yet. But he will be once he kills me

Not that it matters

 _I'm pretty sure it does! -GL_

DON'T CONTRADICT ME

I forgive your earlier insolence so here's the secret: Moriarty's downfall is coming. And John's at the center of it. But first a lot of people are going to die

Be watchful, Gregory. Like the guardian angels of old

Oh, and keep Sherlock away until his phone rings. We don't want him interfering

 _What the hell are you on about? Where's John? -GL_

* * *

 _Mycroft, I got some strange text messages from John's phone. -GL_

 _[Picture 1 inserted]_

 _[Picture 2 inserted]_

 _What does the person mean? -GL_

 ** _I must do more investigation but I believe the mystery person is Moriarty himself. -MH_**

 _Are you sure? Why would he tell us about his own death? -GL_

 ** _So that we feel the need to apprehend John before he goes through with his plan. -MH_**

 ** _We must not interfere. -MH_**

 _Isn't it the normal thing to try and find someone before they commit first-degree murder? -GL_

 ** _Yes. -MH_**

 _Remind me why we aren't? -GL_

 ** _..._**

 ** _We've kept tabs on Moriarty and his cult for over a decade. Recently a great number of his operatives have deceased and while that would be worrying, the culprit is Moriarty's right-hand. John is playing his part as our right-hand so that Moriarty's right-hand loses power and Moriarty's web is dismantled. -MH_**

 _Since when did John become James Bond? -GL_

 ** _Since the day he told my dear brother the truth. -MH_**

* * *

 _Mycroft tells me you're James Bond now. -GL_

 _Come back to all of us when you're done, yeah? -GL_

* * *

 **Audio Message Sent to the Inbox of DI Gregory Lestrade**

 **Conversation Transcribed as Follows:**

Dr. Watson: Why did you ask me to meet you here?

Moriarty: Because it's fuuuuuuuun to watch your face twitch! You met him here, didn't you? Good ol' St. Bart's. Not on the roof though. That may have been tacky at the time.

Dr. Watson: You know I met him here.

Moriarty: Obviously! I'm the one who set you up on your first blind date!

Dr. Watson: Yes, yes. Kudos and all that.

Moriarty: Hmmm you sound bored. Just wanna go straight to the killing! I don't blame you, but it is rather rude to cut me off like that.

*pause*

Dr. Watson: Oh, so now you don't feel like talking. Fine with me.

Moriarty: While you're pointing that gun at my head, remind me...*laugh* remind me who _made_ you, who _shaped_ you all these years. Won't you be wasting all of that?

Dr. Watson: I turned into a monster while I was with you.

Moriarty: You were a monster before you met me! I just brought it out in you, like a big, strong butterfly from a weak, flimsy chrysalis.

Dr. Watson: You just wanted someone to share your madness with. And God help me, I indulged you.

Moriarty: I was your everything, don't pretend it was just me! Don't LIE to yourself!

Dr. Watson: *pause* I needed support. And you supported me. I needed you, but I didn't want you.

Moriarty: Not like you want him.

Dr. Watson: No. Never the form and magnitude I want him. *pause* I love him.

Moriarty: I know. We played our game long enough. You chose your side.

Dr. Watson: Yes. And we played well. But you'll threaten him as long as you're alive and I can't let that happen. I can't let anybody hurt him.

Moriarty: Well, good luck with that. There are _buckets_ and _buckets_ of angry little wasps calling for your blood and they'll find out about Sherly and _sting_ him.

Dr. Watson: I'll have to sting them first. You taught me that.

Moriarty: *laugh* That would be too easy with Peter and his followers. He's rather angry with you, you know. He knows about the mission.

Dr. Watson: *pause* You told me you didn't tell anyone about my mission.

Moriarty: And you expected me to tell the truth? Honey, how long have you known me?

Dr. Watson: ...

Moriarty: He's coming for your friends. Peter knows all about this clandestine little rendezvous.

Dr. Watson: How many?

Moriarty: Gunmen? Three. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and Sherlock. I didn't throw in one for dear Mikey since you hate him.

Dr. Watson: *pause* How do I stop it?

Moriarty: Feel free to shoot me, but you have to jump.

Dr. Watson: ...

Moriarty: You've got to admit that's sexier. The noble double agent kills himself to save the lives of his beloved and his friends. Think of the headlines!

Dr. Watson: I just have to jump.

Moriarty: So simple, even Sherlock could do it!

Dr. Watson: *pause* Goodbye, James.

Moriarty: Goodnight, my dear. Sweet dreams.

Dr. Watson: It's morning, James.

Moriarty: It's always nighttime when I have to leave you.

* * *

 **Voicemail Box of Sherlock Holmes**

 **John Watson**

Hey, it's me.

I know it's been a month. Well, more than a month. Anyway...

I'm sorry for lying to you for so long. I met you because James wanted me to kill you after making you fall in love with me. It wasn't really about me, he just wanted to see his only real rival brought down before he died.

But I fell in love with you. Practically from the moment I saw you. And I never lied about that.

I was a frightened coward for so long. I was so fucking scared that you would hate me and I would lose you. I get now that I'm more afraid of you dying. I should have figured that out so much sooner. It would have saved us both pain.

*laugh* I wish things were different. I wish I wasn't where I am, looking at the street down there. It's really far and I'm scared. Mostly because I don't know whether Moriarty will keep his promise and you won't die.

Get away from all windows or open areas. I don't know where the sniper is so please, get out of his line of vision.

Take care of yourself while I'm gone. Three meals a day, hydration, sleep. Don't get back into drugs, or I swear I'll haunt you from beyond the grave. Please take care of my sister as well. She'll need someone. Make sure she stays away from the drinking, alright?

You are worth all the love and kindness and sacrifice the world has to offer. You are worth everything, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Ever. I'm serious.

*pause*

Goodbye, my love.

 **Message Ends**

* * *

 _What are you going to do now? -GL_

 **Survive. Take care of Harry. -SH**

 _I'm always here if you need me. -GL_

 _If you need help with the funeral or anything. -GL_

 **-Messages didn't send. Try again?-**

* * *

 **A/N: Well. Hello. It's been over a year. I had a lot of writer's block, mostly b/c I was working through my real life issues. Despite my best effort, some of my issues ended up in the writing so I took a break. Anyway, this story will be completed! There are other fandoms I'm writing and reading but this story will be finished no matter how long the chapters take. Thank you if you're still reading and thank you to anyone who read my other fics while I was on hiatus. :) Have a lovely day!**


	26. Ash

Hey, it's me.

I know it's been a month. Well, more than a month. Anyway...

I'm sorry for lying to you for so long. I met you because James wanted me to kill you after making you fall in love with me. It wasn't really about me, he just wanted to see his only real rival brought down before he died.

But I fell in love with you. Practically from the moment I saw you. And I never lied about that.

I was a frightened coward for so long. I was so fucking scared that you would hate me and I would lose you. I get now that I'm more afraid of you dying. I should have figured that out so much sooner. It would have saved us both pain.

*laugh* I wish things were different. I wish I wasn't where I am, looking at the street down there. It's really far and I'm scared. Mostly because I don't know whether Moriarty will keep his promise and you won't die.

Get away from all windows or open areas. I don't know where the sniper is so please, get out of his line of vision.

Take care of yourself while I'm gone. Three meals a day, hydration, sleep. Don't get back into drugs, or I swear I'll haunt you from beyond the grave. Please take care of my sister as well. She'll need someone. Make sure she stays away from the drinking, alright?

You are worth all the love and kindness and sacrifice the world has to offer. You are worth everything, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Ever. I'm serious.

*pause*

Goodbye, my love.

 **Message Played 173 Times**

 **Replay Message?**

 _Yes_

* * *

"Did you get a new number?"

Sherlock turned around at the sound of Lestrade's voice. "No."

Lestrade glared at him. "There are people, including me, who worry when you drop off the grid. I know John died, but it isn't healthy to hole yourself up like you've been doing."

"I'm outside, aren't I?" Sherlock motioned at the smoggy street in distaste, well, _feigning_ distaste. He couldn't really think in terms of distaste, or irritation, or general contentment or joy or hatred or happiness or _anything_ when he chose to think about it.

Well, that was a lie. He did feel utterly _destroyed._ But nobody needed to hear that.

"Leave me alone, Lestrade."

"You don't want this case?"

Sherlock scoffed. "You don't need me on this case. You just wanted me to get out of Baker Street for a while."

"Yeah," Lestrade conceded. "Please, Sherlock. He'd want-"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK HE'D WANT!" Sherlock shouted. Lestrade looked so shocked.

"Sherlock?"

"No. Just leave me alone. If you're worried about me, ask Mycroft how I am. He has cameras in my flat."

* * *

Sherlock flopped down in John's chair and stuck his nose in the fabric. The smell was already starting to fade.

 _"You didn't just go to Tesco. You smell like blood and metal, and bad hospital soap. You don't have a job at any hospital, so you went to another establishment with a need for disinfectant. You showered, then. It's all over you. Public shower? No, you have one here, and also, your soap doesn't smell like that. More likely a necessity shower in a dirty place where you..." Sherlock trailed off. "John, what did you do?"_

 _"You told me a story, Sherlock. The villain of that story was in Pentonville Prison. I did what I had to do to keep you safe." His voice was soft, and he meant it._

 _"He's dead. You know for certain that he's dead?" Sherlock was breathing hard, and he wildly looked at John for confirmation._

 _"Victor Trevor is dead. He can't hurt you anymore." John had to rush forward and catch Sherlock in his arms, because his friend nearly collapsed right where he was sitting. "Shh, Sherlock. It's alright now. He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, and I'm here."_

Sherlock shook his head into the arm of the chair. Normal people didn't commit brutal, cold-blooded murder. Normal people didn't relish it, not like John did.

But John did it for him. John killed Victor Trevor for him.

 _"...I had someone to protect. You pulled me back from the edge of the cliff at the same time you pushed me forward. Kill for me, you said. Kill for me, keep me safe, hurt those that would touch me. They don't deserve to." John sighed. "If someone comes close to you with ill intent, I don't even think. My gun is out and my bullet's left the magazine before I can pull myself back..."_

John was crazy. John was just crazy, John was crazy. John never-

 _"Feelings are never fair, love. They'll overtake you when you least expect it and bulldoze you, leaving you in pieces that you had better pick up before the damn bulldozer comes again." John pressed kisses all over Sherlock's face and jaw and neck as he said this. "I've dealt with enough bulldozers to know when one's coming. The least I can do is escape with you."_

Damn him, damn him for smiling and kissing and-

 _So you love him, then? A shame he doesn't love you back. -JM_

Moriarty didn't know what he was talking about, he never did-

 _He'd never made love to someone before._

Sex meant nothing, he knew better than anybody ever-

 _His partner took a deep breath. "I'm in love with you."_

 _Sherlock had no idea what to say to that. "What?"_

 _John's cheeks flushed. "I'm in love with you. Don't make me repeat it, I can feel my face turning tomato-colored."_

Sherlock put his hands over his ears and tried to dig himself into a different part of his mind palace. John followed him everywhere he went, though. Every hallway, every room had some reminder of John, some words he said, some part of his body, some sigh, some bite at Sherlock's neck, some fingernail mark on Sherlock's thigh, some gunshot, some crash.

Blood slid along the floor, dripping off the walls. It coated his feet as he ran; he was scared it would drown him if he fell.

Sherlock shot up and off the chair, shaking himself out of his mind palace. In the bathroom, hidden underneath a few loose tiles, that was where it was. He could just take a little bit, just a little and he'd be better.

There'd be no more nightmares. Just a colorful haze; no more pain. He would stop seeing John's shattered body every time he closed his eyes.

He'd heard the crunch (the crunch of John's bones against the pavement) in his dreams. He'd watched them take John away on a stretcher, he'd felt John's pulse.

He'd emptied seventeen bullets into Moriarty's body (heart and head and spine and major blood vessels) when he went up to the roof; Lestrade had had to drag him down the stairs kicking and punching. Moriarty was hardly more than a collection of bloody tissue and Sherlock still hated him with all of his being.

Sherlock almost broke his nails trying to pull up those fucking tiles but simply seeing the needle and that gorgeous little bottle of morphine began to sweep the pain away.

Just a little.

Just a little, and the nightmares would _stop_.

* * *

Lestrade picked up his phone with a, "What did you see?"

Mycroft sighed. "He's using again."

* * *

Harry swore. That picture was pretty damning, especially to a recovering addict.

"Fuck his methods; he doesn't get to do this anymore."

* * *

Sherlock only briefly noticed footsteps entering his flat before drifting back off. John was singing, singing with a violin's voice and he was so _beautiful._

 _"I wouldn't want anyone else. I_ don't _want anyone else."_

Dream-John spun him around the room, trying to dance and giggling uncontrollably every time he stepped on Sherlock's feet.

 _"I am in love with Sherlock Holmes. And anyone that doesn't like it can go fuck themselves."_

* * *

"Why do you keep practicing self-destructive habits, brother mine? That vicious murderer isn't worth your relapse."

"He's there waiting, Mycroft. How can I leave him waiting?"

* * *

"Here comes the sun, dodododo, here comes the sun and I say, it's alright," Sherlock sang blearily.

John smiled at him. "You remembered I like the Beatles?"

"I remember everything about you."

* * *

Harry clomped up the stairs to 221B, ignoring Mrs. Hudson's warning that Sherlock wasn't 'in his right mind'. Well, fuck that, Harry thought.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked bluntly as she found Sherlock sprawled across the floor with John's shirts tangled around him.

"I'm singing to him, Harriet," Sherlock replied petulantly, not moving.

"Sherlock," Harry huffed, "he's not here. I don't care what your drug-addled brain thinks; John's gone." Her brother took a swan dive off a building. It was pretty damn easy to understand. Of course she hadn't known about his double agent status or James being a murdering psychopath, but John had never given any clues that he would do something like that.

Despite John's last message (which she'd listened to without asking Sherlock), she knew that Sherlock would need the love and care, not her. She had her own shit to deal with, she would never deny that, but Sherlock was a fucking mess.

Harry started pulling the shirts off of Sherlock and setting them aside; every needle, syringe, spoon, lighter, vial, makeshift tourniquet, and other item that had been or could be used to shoot up went into a garbage bag. She tossed out rancid food and cleaned all the kitchen surfaces with bleach. Harry stacked all the paper floating around the flat and none too gently hefted Sherlock onto the couch, making sure he was on his side in case he had to vomit. This withdrawal wasn't going to be pretty, but they'd ride through it together.

Sherlock finally shook off his high an hour later. Harry thrust a glass of water in his face and he gulped it down.

"What are you doing here?" he spat, voice raspy from disuse.

"I'm here to make you wake the fuck up." Harry took the glass back and set it on the kitchen counter.

"I'm fully awake, thank you. You can leave now," Sherlock sniped, attempting and failing to rise from the couch.

"Bullshit. How long has it been since you've eaten?"

"Irrelevant. Get out of my flat."

"No. John told you to take care of me in his last words and you've done fuck all to accomplish that. Now you're shooting up and not eating and basically killing yourself too and I. Call. Bullshit." Sherlock frowned and Harry folded her arms. "He wouldn't have wanted this."

He scoffed. "How would any of us know what he would have wanted? He lied. About everything. I'm not entirely certain of anything he ever said to me, or any gesture he ever made. And if he could lie to me, the rest of you were sitting ducks. He could have looked you in the eyes and told you he had cancer and you would have believed him."

"But he never lied about his feelings for you. Ever."

"How the hell would you know? I still don't!" Sherlock shouted.

For a minute, neither one of them spoke; then, Harry tromped none-too-gently over to the couch, sat down, and pulled Sherlock's head into her lap. She could feel the thin cords in his neck and the residual weakness in his pulse. He'd definitely lost weight. Every breath felt like a tiny but ongoing struggle.

"I have to believe he loved you," she said quietly. "Otherwise I can't believe anything my brother ever said."

Sherlock nodded a little. The two of them stayed there until Mrs. Hudson came upstairs with biscuits, and Sherlock stood up and went to his room, grabbing blankets. When he returned, he wrapped Harry in one blanket and himself in another and they fell asleep like that: cocooned and almost suffocated, but more held together than they'd been in a long time.

* * *

 _Six Months Later_

Mycroft had always had his suspicions.

High-risk operatives around the world were seemingly dropping dead, the suspects and apparent perpetrators easily identified. But it was too _clean._ Everything screamed 'CONSPIRACY', more so than usual, but there were so many missing pieces and John Watson, the Beloved, James Moriarty's right hand man and later his killer, was certifiably dead. The injuries from his jump were substantial, and it would be impossible to fake that level of bodily damage. The odds of John remaining alive after such an experience were so low he almost wasn't able to calculate them.

However.

If anybody could do it, John was capable.

Mycroft kept his suspicions to himself. Sherlock needed to get clean before any other developments could take place, and Mycroft definitely didn't trust him with the potential information in his current state. Harry was helping, but that didn't mean Sherlock couldn't relapse at any time.

He carefully poured himself a glass of brandy and took a small sip. If John was still alive, Mycroft vowed to figure out a form of revenge for that whore hurting his brother. Until then, he could make security in the branches of government still holding Moriarty's spies tighter, just to make John's job more difficult.

Mycroft smirked. He did enjoy his work so very much some days.

* * *

 _Six More Months Later_

He just had one more. One more person dead and he could go home.

One more. Just Sebastian Moran, obnoxious Peter whom he'd hated from the moment he'd set foot in Moriarty's operation. Once that fucker died and he watched the blood leak out of his body, then he could go home.

Moran wasn't even that hard to find, but he wanted to save the worst for last. With this shot, he would cut off the head of the snake and all this business would be over, And he could go home and see Sherlock and Harry and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and Molly and maybe his life would have a new meaning. Maybe he wouldn't have to be a killer anymore.

Besides, he really just wanted to sleep for a while. Was that too much to ask?

John loaded his rifle and cocked it. "This one's for you, my dearest love," he murmured, and the bullet slid out of the barrel and Moran fell.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**


	27. Secondary Forest

Moran's body hit the ground with a dull thud.

The world slid out of focus; every sound murmured rather than shouted.

John stalked up to his very last victim and felt his pulse. The shot pierced the middle of Moran's forehead

(right between the eyes, came the numbing thought)

and the chances of Moran surviving were almost low enough for John to trust, but he still checked.

Blood and brain matter pooled on the dirt underneath Moran's body. John carefully avoided it as he walked away, leaving the corpse behind him. He briefly wondered who would find the body, and how long it would take. For his own sake, John hoped Moran was three-days dead and decomposing. That way, there was no possibility of resuscitation; in addition, it was sufficiently demeaning. John shuddered. He'd refrained from emptying an entire clip into his former coworker, so he wanted to maintain that.

He kept a steady walking pace to the stolen car, trying to seem as unassuming as possible. John had stowed his gun already

(stowed it in a hidden zipper pocket in the lining of the bag he used specifically for this purpose)

and no cop was likely to stop him at this time of the morning. 7 am wasn't a popular time for crime.

John took a few deep breaths before starting the car;

(people weren't supposed to drive with high emotions since it caused more accidents.)

He shifted out of park and put his blinker on. He'd have to dump the car once he got close to London: too many questions he didn't want to answer. He could use a good, long walk anyway.

Well, seven hours from now, John would be almost home.

He tried not to let himself think about Sherlock: where Sherlock would be, if he still lived in 221B, if he was taking care of Harry, if he was shooting up (because he'd never gotten a clear answer about Sherlock's _habit_ ), if he missed John too, if he still loved him. Some of those questions he wouldn't let himself answer because it'd be so painful to think through every possibility. Some of those questions had no clear answer. Sherlock was undoubtedly a different person now, just like John.

John had killed more people in the past year than in the past five years of Moriarty's employment. He knew the people he killed this time around were the real scum of the Earth: people who sold children into slavery, people who rang drug cartels, people who kidnapped and tortured innocents. Mercenaries, traffickers, businesspersons, _killers_ , all of them, even if they were only indirectly connected. But murder takes a toll. John had only peripherally addressed his issues with murder before Sherlock, and now every body that fell had Sherlock's disappointed face.

He wouldn't be physically able to kill someone now. (And even as he thought that, he remembered Moran threatening Sherlock's life and imagined someone holding a gun to Sherlock's head and John feeling absolutely nothing as he cut that person down. He wondered if he would ever be able to escape that.)

Traffic began picking up as time continued. Commuters glared at one another and yelled obscenities and John drove silently and calmly, avoiding everyone's eyes on the multi-lane road. He only stopped to refuel and use the bathroom. He only spoke to be polite.

He washed his face at his first stop. John registered the bags under his eyes (manageable with a few hours of sleep) and the grease building in his hair (he could have a shower in a few hours).

Only a few hours left.

John pondered for a moment the number of hours he'd started with, and how many had slipped through his fingers like sand, and how glad he was to be rid of some, and how he'd let go of some too soon. He wondered what he'd give to get an hour with Sherlock in his arms and laughing back. He wondered if he'd given enough already or if he'd never be able to give enough.

He raked his hands over his head and left the tiny bathroom, letting the door slam behind him.

John left the car on a side road about five miles from the highway, slinging his bag over his shoulder and grabbing a sturdy branch for a walking stick. His leg rarely bothered him anymore, but he'd rather not take any chances. He'd walk into town until he was mostly out of the suburbs and catch a cab; he thought he had enough money to get him within a few blocks of 221B.

Miles and miles passed, pavement blurring under his feet. A truck actually stopped for him once, its driver asking if he needed a lift, but John declined.

The scenery changed from open road to suburbs and John made sure he had money for an hour trip into the city. Thankfully he'd dumped all his other guns earlier in the year; it'd be a pain to carry more in a cab.

"Where you headed?" the cabbie asked.

John smiled. "Home."

The cabbie rolled his eyes. "And where would that be, exactly?"

"221B Baker Street."

* * *

Harry rolled her eyes. She wondered if a blow-horn would be more effective to wake Sherlock up than just yelling at him. The man slept like a fucking rock. A very, very old rock. Like a pre-Archaen era rock, if those still existed. They probably did.

Wait, why did she still remember useless facts from Physical Science?

"SHERLOCK!" she shouted for what felt like the eightieth time. "YOU'VE GOT A CLIENT!"

"CEASE YOUR AIMLESS SHOUTING, WOMAN!"

Harry smirked. "OH, SO YOU ARE LISTENING THEN." She turned to the client, a very kind woman around her age who'd taken the noise with not even a slight grimace, with an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. He's a really moody bastard when he's told what to do. Meaning every day, because I like earning an income."

"No worries." The woman grinned and leaned in secretively, "I've got a brother exactly like that. Fascinating to listen to when he actually wants to talk."

"My brother was the talkative one, but he never talked about the important things when it mattered." Harry frowned. "John. Bleh. Anyway, you don't want to hear my life story, Sherlock's coming now."

Sherlock glared upon his dramatic entrance into the room. "Yes, she really doesn't want to hear your life story. And she doesn't have a real brother."

The woman scoffed. "Close enough. We worked in the field together for over a decade. Mind you, he's been gone for a year and I haven't heard from him since. Very rude and unlike him. He sends Reenie cards still, I don't know why he's forgotten about me," she muttered.

"Perhaps _Reenie_ had a life event worthy of card-giving." Sherlock shook his head. "If he's been gone for a year, why have you only started looking for him now? And have you considered that he doesn't want to be found?"

"Of course I have. But fuck that, I'm worried about him." Harry nodded. This kind of logic she understood. She'd been living with Sherlock for ten months already and his logic still passed her by most of the time.

Sherlock shrugged. "He's in town. He left a note in your postbox a few hours ago, before you left to come here, you just didn't get the chance to read it."

The woman jumped in her seat. "Are you sure?"

"I'm always sure."

"Not always," Harry murmured, much to Sherlock's apparent anger. She knew it was still a sore spot for him, but she had to keep reminding him he wasn't infallible. None of them were, even when they couldn't afford to be wrong.

"That's beside the point," Sherlock sniped. "If you head home, the postcard should ease your little worries. You are aware of my fee?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Send the bill to Mary Morstan, 336 Parkfield Lane."

Harry nodded. "Definitely. Thank you so much for coming."

Mary smiled. "No, thank you. I missed my brother a lot, and I feel much better now." She patted Harry on the shoulder, slung her purse over her shoulder, and walked out of the flat, gently shutting the door behind her.

Harriet Watson turned to Sherlock and fixed her worst bitch face on him. "You need to stop being a total arse to clients. Neither one of us is made of money, despite the mysterious funds coming from your dick brother."

"Oh, that is the ultimate insult coming from you. I hope Mycroft was listening appropriately," Sherlock smirked.

Harry laughed, "Yeah, thanks for that. Although the fact you're making jokes is a good sign." Sherlock's nonverbal scowl led into her saying, "Yeah, yeah. The money. Stop being mean to people who want to pay us."

"Miss Morstan is going to pay us."

"Yes, because I bridged your diplomacy gap, as usual. How many times have we had this conversation?"

"Twenty-seven."

"Rhetorical question." Harry raised her eyebrow and Sherlock mimicked her for a few seconds before she began to giggle. Freaking Sherlock. For all his talk, he would forever deny being the huge dork he was. "Whatever, you know all my arguments and I know all your arguments and we could probably go through the whole thing like a fucking movie script so we're not going to do that. My main point stands."

"Lovely. Now I can go do something useful with my time." He stalked off, his coat billowing behind him, even though it was too warm for that. She almost wished for his sake that he would start to wear the pajamas and sheet-cape combo again. At least that wouldn't make him boil in his skin like a cooking chicken.

Mary reminded her that it had been a year since John died. Almost to the day. And she missed him, missed him every single day.

She still talked to him sometimes: when the sobriety got hard and she really, really needed a drink; when Sherlock wouldn't leave his room for days and days and never ate; when her therapists kept telling her that talking to him was keeping her from moving on; when arseholes at the pub talked shit about John like they'd known him or the shit he'd been through. John hadn't been a perfect man by any means, but they had no right to talk about him like that.

She often asked him what she should do and he would just smile and say, 'do what makes you happy' and she would take that to mean verbally eviscerating those arseholes from the pub and he'd laugh and say, 'that's not really what I meant, but alright' and she'd laugh and people would ask why and she'd say, 'nothing'.

Harry wondered if Sherlock ever talked to him. Maybe in his mind palace or something, since Sherlock had to be above the puny humans at all times, but Harry liked to think he did. It made her feel less alone to know that all three of them still spoke to each other, no matter what had happened.

"How's your lavender experiment going?" she called across the flat.

"Slowly. I need to test several concentrations for use in a medicine that lessens sleep disturbance and unfortunately I will need many subjects over a long period of time. Perhaps next time I'll choose an experiment with a shorter duration."

Harry frowned slightly. "Yeah, maybe."

* * *

Mary (code-named Mary Magdalene through her work with the former gang of Apostles) practically leaped on her postbox when she got home, and sure enough, the Beloved had sent her a postcard. Mr. Holmes definitely deserved the slightly extravagant pay; his deductions really were something.

 _Dear Mary,_

 _James went too far. I told you I'd make a move when I thought he was completely out of line but never had the stones to do anything about him; but he went too far this time. He's dead now, and I've spent the last several months dismantling his network._

 _I hope this postcard finds you well. Sorry about the radio silence, I really am. I know you worry._

 _The Beloved (John Watson [b/c I guess I never told you my real name, did I?])_

Mary suddenly had the urge to burn the piece of card-stock with a great deal of ire. John _Watson_? The double agent asshole who threw himself off a building? Ooh, they were going to have a _conversation_ when he came back into the public eye.

* * *

Mycroft chewed on the end of his pen. He usually refrained from his rather disgusting habit, but this puzzled him. Dr. Watson had not appeared on the many cameras he'd placed throughout the city, nor the cameras he'd hacked throughout the United Kingdom. No extra red flags had graced his already-flashing-scarlet email. No reports of stolen cars, no strange currency, no out-of-the-ordinary disturbances. It was like every clue he'd had about Watson's whereabouts had evaporated.

He was so sure. Watson was out there, he knew it.

"Sir?" his assistant (she was calling herself Jane this week) asked.

"Yes?" He abruptly dropped the pen.

"There has been a sighting."

Mycroft stood up. "Are you certain?"

Jane rolled her eyes with a quick, practiced movement. "Quite. He was caught on CCTV on the corner of Parkfield and Johnson. The subject slipped a postcard into the mailbox of 336 Parkfield Lane and got back into his cab."

Mycroft could have shouted in joy. "He made a mistake, and we always catch them when they make mistakes."

"Apparently Dr. Watson isn't infallible after all." Jane smirked and left Mycroft's office, the smallest skip in her step. She probably knew she'd be getting vacation time soon.

He pulled the owner of the house up on his laptop. Mary Morstan, most likely an alias, formerly of the New Order religious radical group.

Wait.

New Order, _First Order (no, Star Wars),_ **maybe a 'new world order' (no, wrong again, X-Men, specifically Magneto),** New Order (the band? no [why hadn't they sued for the name?]), oh, he knew that group.

New Order was one of the many pseudonyms for Moriarty's business, meaning Mary Morstan was a former member. Then why hadn't Watson killed her?

Sentiment. Mycroft scoffed. This sentiment had caught Watson like a fish in a net.

* * *

Sherlock scowled at his lavender concoctions. The solutions were five, ten, twenty, forty, fifty, and one hundred percent by volume diluted lavender oil, and a control solution with distilled water. He'd have to test them in a controlled environment with subjects that could be relied on to give good results. He could send them to St. Bart's for a variety of patients in pain; they'd definitely have sleep disturbances. But would he have to pay the subjects?

"Harriet? Would I have to pay the subjects of this experiment?" he asked, raising his voice so she could hear him over the shower-head and fan.

"MOST LIKELY," she shouted back. "YOU'RE ASKING REGULAR PEOPLE TO TAKE TIME OUT OF THEIR LIVES TO HELP YOU. GENERALLY THAT REQUIRES MONEY."

Sherlock winced a little. Harry, as he'd come to realize, had three volumes: somewhat quiet, regular speaking voice, and EXTREMELY LOUD. Mrs. Hudson didn't even bother to come upstairs and ask about the racket anymore.

Harry had moved into John's first room, before John and Sherlock had shared a bedroom. All of his things had already been moved out, but she sometimes still found stray socks behind the dresser or thin threads from his sweaters strewn on the carpet. Sherlock never told her that he kept everything John left behind in a section of his closet, but she'd probably guessed. She'd cock her head and look at him sadly for a brief moment and then move away like the moment hadn't happened. He appreciated it, maybe, but sometimes he wanted to start screaming madly about the sock or the thread as if it held all the disgusting traits the world had to offer. He reined himself in though; she didn't need to bear his burden as as well as her own.

"I don't have to pay you to test this, correct? What concentration would you like?"

"GIVE ME THE HARDCORE STUFF. GOD KNOWS I NEED IT." Harry turned off the shower and got dressed, emerging in a few minutes with her hand out for the vial labeled '100% Week 1'. "So how the hell do I use this?"

"Put it in a dish in the room, preferably a few feet from your bed while you sleep. The scent should help you relax and sleep easier. Cover the dish with an airtight lid when you wake up so the oil is only tested for sleeping purposes."

"Are you testing this too?" Harry raised an eyebrow. Damn, she still didn't trust him after the Spaghetti Incident.

"Yes, I am, even though I wish not to skew the results with my self-tests."

"You'll be fine if you actually decide to sleep during the test period."

Sherlock glared at her. "I do sleep."

"Yes, certainly. If you count the periods of unconsciousness when you get beaten up by criminals, the ten-minute catnaps, and collapsing of extreme exhaustion, you still only get a few hours a week. It's gonna kill you, little bro."

"Just because you're a couple years older than me doesn't mean you get to call me that," Sherlock grumbled.

"You're missing the point, _little bro._ Do the tests with me, take the next highest dilution. It'll be two weeks of reliable sleep that we both need. You in?" Harry attempted to give him her best 'puppy-dog eyes' despite the fact that she knew those didn't work on him.

"Fine. You'll only bother me until I agree." He folded his arms and tried not to look petulant.

Harry beamed. "Right about that, mister." She went to the door and put her shoes on. "I've got a date with the woman I met-"

"-at the movie theatre, yes I know." He paused. "She's nice. Bit of a thing for being tied up, but no...less savory fantasies."

"Nothing illegal?" Sherlock nodded. "My favorite kind of woman." Harry smiled from the doorway. "Remember to eat dinner, Sherlock. I should be home in a couple hours or tomorrow morning, depending on how it goes."

"Yes, yes." He waved her off. Harry shut the door and went downstairs and out of the flat.

* * *

Mary had already angrily called him as he paced on the sidewalk in front of 221B; John really didn't need the extra stress. He felt like the next person to even tap him on the shoulder had a high chance of being punched in the throat.

He was oscillating on the pavement, just like that girl so many months ago. Asking about her boyfriend.

John huffed. How similar they were now.

However much he wanted to oscillate on the pavement until Sherlock leaving the flat took the choice to go in and talk to Sherlock away from him, he knew the odds of him coming up with something to say were just as terrible now or later. He had to make a decision.

John was afraid; in fact, John was really, really terrified. He'd thought he'd be able to muster some courage from the past year, but he had none of it left. Sherlock took far more bravery to handle than any of the people he'd killed, because anyone could kill if there was a good enough reason. Apologizing was difficult. Possible rejection was difficult. Putting your whole soul into someone's hands and then fucking off to go murder people wasn't exactly conducive to nice conversations.

Okay, fuck this.

John marched right up to the door and knocked using the crooked knocker without straightening it, just to piss Mycroft off.

He stood in front of the door rather awkwardly for thirty seconds, wondering what Mrs. Hudson must have been doing. He knocked again, firmly, letting the sound resonate through the flat. Maybe then Sherlock could answer the door, or whoever else was living in 221 Baker Street.

Actually the thought of another person taking his place made him kind of sick, so he shut that train of thought down very quickly.

This was going to be awkward if no one came to let him in.

What if nobody lived here anymore? He hadn't contemplated it on the way over, but now that he was here...What if Sherlock had moved away and took Mrs. Hudson to live with him? He would have enough money from his trust fund and selling the flat to go live somewhere on the other side of London. What if he moved to Sussex? Oh God, and Sherlock was in Sussex beekeeping and cursing John's name every day and naming his dead bees after John? What if Sherlock had a new boyfriend? Or girlfriend, who knew?

But what if Sherlock was happy now?

If Sherlock was happy, John really had no place coming back. If Sherlock was happy, none of John's stupid speeches would matter. John had brutally and effectively ruined their relationship from the very beginning with his lies and his non-apologetic murder. But he hadn't just ruined their relationship, he'd messed with Sherlock too, brought him into John's mess. He'd made a disaster and put it at Sherlock's feet.

He fucked up and conveniently forgot that maybe Sherlock didn't want to see him.

John slumped on the ground in front of the door. He wondered briefly if he could just take a nap here. It wasn't like anyone would open the door and jostle him, and he was quite tired. Maybe a little catnap. Then he could leave and never bother people again, live in a cottage in the country and never talk to anyone. They didn't deserve the crap that he dumped on unwitting citizens.

Maybe just a nap. The he could become a small farmer.

Or a beekeeper, like Sherlock.

He could have cats...heh, catnap.

Cats were soft.

* * *

Harry actually liked this woman; she was sweet and laughed at Harry's nerdy jokes and worked with kids at the nearby school and didn't care that she'd been married before. A lot of her dates heard that Harry'd been married and immediately shut down. But Maggie was different than the other women, and Harry will admit she jumped up and down after Maggie left the restaurant, having received a kiss on the cheek.

It wasn't dorky.

Nope.

Although skipping back to the flat was probably very dorky.

Half of a block away, Harry started fumbling with her keys. She remembered Sherlock wouldn't let her take John's key so she had to take Mrs. Hudson's master key to a hardware store to get a copy. At first she thought Sherlock was simply being obstinate about her barging in and settling down there, but she wondered if he just didn't want to let one of John's last belongings out of his sight. Poor bastard. When she died, she was going to walk right up to John's immortal soul or whatever the hell people had after death and punch him in the fucking nose.

Except, she didn't expect that moment to be so near in the future.

Her brother, her _buried_ brother John, was lying on the steps to the flat, dead asleep (maybe not the best turn of phrase?) judging by the little snuffling noises he was making.

Harry pinched herself incredibly hard and swore very quietly.

She grabbed the correct key and unlocked the front door, stepping behind John. Dragging him in was better than leaving him there and coming back to find him gone. Harry sincerely hoped Sherlock's lavender crap was working on him because she really didn't want to explain this until both boys had their full brain capacities back. Sleepy fights with Sherlock always got ugly, and John was plain nonsensical when sleep-deprived or drowsy.

His ass was definitely going to hurt from dragging him up the stairs, but John would thank her later.

Dammit, why was he so _heavy_? Dead weight was one thing, but obviously John had been working out while he was away.

Harry felt very tempted to slap him. He had _so much fucking explaining to do_.

She left him on the couch after some serious finagling. John, being asleep, was so entirely unhelpful in this venture, but John would end up paying for all of this once him and Sherlock were both awake.

She'd probably have her freak-out about her brother being alive tomorrow. Running on pure adrenaline and craving sleep using Sherlock's 'good stuff' did that to a person. Harry nodded to herself. Tomorrow. She went upstairs, dropped her purse on the floor, and collapsed into bed, making sure to take the airtight lid off of the lavender container.

* * *

Sherlock wrenched his eyelids apart. Apparently getting more sleep than usual just once makes the body crave it. He'd set an alarm for continuity: if his schedule of going to bed and waking up stayed constant, the results of the experiment should have been constant as well. However, he'd underestimated his body's truly unacceptable appetite for sleep.

Ten hours was simply unnecessary.

He practically fell out of bed, rummaged through the sock drawer to find ones that were actually his, and yanked on his robe before opening his bedroom door. Maybe Harry was right about the slippers; her feet never seemed to be this cold in the morning. Sherlock scrubbed a hand over his eyes. John would say he'd finally descended to the human level and smile at him.

He hadn't heard Harry come in the night before. He'd been asleep, but he liked to think a few of his faculties were intact. She might have come in silently due to the nature of the experiment.

Sherlock trudged into the unfairly bright kitchen and had to convince himself to reach his arms up for the tea. Without tea, he doubted he would be a fully functioning person, so reaching up was worth it. John had gotten Sherlock to crave his tea within the first few weeks of cohabiting. In fact, John's tea was the reason he stopped drinking coffee.

Well, he stopped drinking coffee after Baskerville, but nobody had to know that.

He hadn't left enough water in the kettle for today's tea.

Sherlock filled the kettle with cold tap water; droplets of water on the outside of the kettle dripped down and hissed as they hit the hot stove. Making tea was surprisingly violent, he'd found. Hissing, burning, scalding, screaming, staining. It shouldn't have been so dangerous.

Suddenly he realized he'd sat down at the kitchen table with a perfectly steamed mug of tea in his hands and his tongue was a little singed, if one could use 'singed' in this context. He must have lost time. Perfectly natural, he was sure. Grief did many strange things to clients in the past and people on those awful soaps Mrs. Hudson still watched with him. Seeing John laying peacefully on the couch, strikingly beautiful and battered, was surely natural as well. He did talk to John sometimes when Harry wasn't in the flat. John had never appeared in front of him like this, but perhaps this was the next stage.

Sherlock finished his tea detachedly and rinsed the mug, putting it in the sink. Harry didn't have to know he was seeing John.

"You have to eat breakfast, Sherlock."

Sherlock huffed. "My hallucinations talk now. That's new."

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Did you happen to delete that too?" John sounded rusty but fond; he'd thought he'd blurred all the exact memories of John's voice but maybe he'd compiled the most likely inflections and rearranged them into possible speech.

"You said it enough," Sherlock said numbly, but walking to the refrigerator and looking for milk. Although, maybe he'd left the generic corn flakes there as well. He used to eat them and leave his bowl in the sink and John would berate him, because those leftover flakes dried and got really difficult to wash off.

Toast sounded better.

John's jacket was tangled around his arms and his shirt was riding up a little over his left hip. Sherlock could see his chest rise and fall and there was no evidence that his body had crushed against the pavement. He looked so _alive_.

Sherlock hated him a little. Just for existing outside of the mess for even a few minutes.

"You look really tired, Sherlock." John frowned and shifted on the couch so that he could sit up instead of craning his neck at him. "Have you been sleeping at all while I was gone? I thought Harry would badger you into doing more of it."

"She's quite the menace," Sherlock replied, "but even she cannot badger my mind into relief."

"You're not using again, are you?" John's gaze became fierce and unyielding.

"Briefly, at the beginning. She took it away."

"Who took what away?" Harry asked, coming down the stairs in her slippers, dammit, he should have heard her and stopped speaking to John.

"Nobody did anything. I need to bathe." He tried to walk out of the room as fast as he could, but didn't make it far.

"John Hamish Watson, what the absolute fuck are you doing?" Harry turned her Type 6 Glare (the murderous one) on her brother and continued, "The only reason you're in here is because I couldn't let you lay on the doorstep and get mugged but if I had a choice you'd be back on the fucking pavement so leave Sherlock alone for fuck's sake and start explaining, because you have _so fucking many things to explain_."

John scoffed at his sister about 'language' and Harry retorted something snarky but Sherlock could scarcely register what they were saying. "You can see him too?" Sherlock asked quietly, staring at the floor with all his might. There were acid stains on one floorboard, but burns on another.

Harry immediately dropped the conversation with John, cut him off actually, and went right up to Sherlock and put her hands on his face. "Yeah, I can see him. He's real. I don't know how and if he doesn't tell us how I'll beat him up but I got you, okay?"

"He's a bastard," Sherlock exhaled, trying very hard to breathe normally.

"Hell yes, he is. I'll let you have the first right hook." She was still able to smile and he envied her for that, envied her for keeping things together when Sherlock sank into this awful ocean of numbness. Definitely John's sister. He nodded and she pulled gently on one of his curls and left the kitchen, sinking down into John's chair and folding her arms. "John. Start talking."

And he did, Sherlock knew that. He wasn't really listening; he'd mentally curled into the fetal position. There was a room in his mind with a bed with rumpled sheets and John was sitting on the edge of it waiting for Sherlock and Sherlock fell into John's arms and waited for the noise to be over. He remembered when John was so kind, when there was proof of life and proof of love and Sherlock could hear his heartbeat and feel his sincerity without actively searching for it. The John on the outside didn't feel like a person; he felt like a carbon copy, like someone had stuck John's design into a 3D printer and told an intern to program his soul. The body existed, the voice existed, but he had the reactions all wrong.

"Sherlock?"

He looked up.

"Do you need to sit down?" Harry asked. Sherlock shook his head. If he didn't move too much, he could look like he was listening but not be jostled out of his room.

"Okay, you need to sit down." She yanked him down into the chair across from her and smacked his leg a few times. "You have to be awake for this."

"I'm awa-"

"No, you aren't. You aren't." Harry bit her lip. "John, get over here."

John stood very slowly, and Sherlock finally noticed the aches and scrapes and butterfly bandages he hadn't really been looking for the first time he saw John. There were so many, he could scarcely count. Not a curve of his body remained untouched by a new cut or bruise. He tilted his head and focused his vision for perhaps the only time in months.

Sherlock reached a hand toward John; John gravitated toward it like he couldn't help being pulled in but he stopped a few scant inches away; Sherlock's hand dropped.

"You're injured."

John laughed a little bitterly. "Yeah. I am."

Sherlock nodded. "Did you accomplish what you left to do?"

"Yeah. Anybody who could have hurt us is dead."

Sherlock nodded. "You lied to me. You lied for so long, John."

"Yeah."

"I know why you did it. You were trying to protect me, right?"

John straightened his shoulders and knelt in front of Sherlock's chair, bracing himself on the arms of the chair instead of Sherlock's knees. "Always. I just wanted to protect you."

Sherlock reached his hands to either side of John's face. "I can't trust you anymore."

"I know." Sherlock could feel the vibrations of his speech. Living people produced speech: their vocal cords vibrated to create sound. "I can leave if it's better for you. Whatever you need, whatever makes you feel comfortable." John swallowed. "I love you."

Sherlock nodded. His fingers ran through John's hair softly. It was longer than it had been, but John had found time to cut it about three months ago. He had bags under his bloodshot eyes and the color of his irises had dulled to a flat blue. He had a five-o-clock shadow and the gray had almost entirely taken over his head. Tiny scars littered his cheeks. Sherlock loved him. He didn't trust him, he didn't think John had earned it and he wouldn't for a long time, but he loved him.

Sherlock slid out of his chair onto the floor and pulled John into his arms, crushing them together. John clung to him and Sherlock almost worried about his multitude of injuries but holding him felt so _good._ "You need to sleep, John," Sherlock murmured, breathing in the only slightly altered scent of John's skin.

"But I did already."

"Sleep is how the body recharges and heals. We'll be better after you sleep." Things he learned from Harry. How did he become the responsible one?

John snuffled against Sherlock's neck. Living people breathe too, not just make vibrations. Heat is the transfer of thermal energy from one object in a system to another, and the two of them were connected in a mutual transfer. Living people transfer heat between them, any scientist could tell you that. "Okay."

Sherlock nestled into John as close as he could. "You're alive."

They coiled there on the rug for an immeasurable amount of time (Harry must have walked away, but Sherlock didn't notice her leaving), but Sherlock finally remembered to make John sleep for a while. He could take Sherlock's bed; Sherlock had a new explosion of things to contemplate. "We have to get up now, John."

"But you're really soft and comfortable." John paused. "You're actually a little bony, but I don' mind."

"Beds are soft. And not bony." Sherlock managed to pull himself off the floor and pulled John up with him as best he could. Thankfully the walk from the sitting room to his bedroom was short. John's hand had a new layer of gun calluses.

John must have killed so many people. But that didn't matter right now. It could matter in a few hours, but this now was recuperation they both needed.

"Take your shoes off," Sherlock said, straightening the duvet. John left his boots by the door and hung his jacket on the doorknob. His trousers ended up folded on the dresser and his shirt folded right next to it.

"I don't want to get your sheets dirty," John protested as Sherlock pulled the duvet over his chest.

"These were yours, it's fine." Sherlock began to pad out of the room, but John called him back.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes, John?"

"You were worth everything I did."

Sherlock closed his eyes briefly. "Thank you." He opened them. "Get a few hours of sleep. The lavender should help."

He closed the door behind him and slumped against it, putting his head in his hands.

* * *

Harry had left the flat to let John and Sherlock talk everything out. She knew it didn't matter what she thought about John's choices since the choices had been made and nothing could erase them. But they had to figure out where to go from here. And that was the real hard part.

Harry was hurt, honestly. She and John had been getting better about communicating and sharing with each other, and it sucked that their progress was superficial. Issues that she knew about were surpassable, were fixable. Fixing issues she didn't know about was like paddling down a river when she couldn't fucking see and the current changed every five seconds. Harry wanted the whole picture, because it's really hard to solve a problem without the whole picture.

She just wanted to help.

"Hello," someone said behind her. Harry turned and found Mary Morstan.

"Oh, hi. How's your brother?"

Mary smiled. "He's in deep trouble with me, but he's fine I should think. I've actually come to visit him."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "He lives here?"

"Well, he did. John Watson? He said he'd be back here. The bastard." Mary shook her head exasperatedly.

"John Watson is my actual brother." Harry folded her arms, feeling really disgruntled.

"He must have just gotten back and wants to spend time with his family." Mary nodded to herself. She stood there for a moment, rocking back and forth on her heels, and then abruptly began walking away. "Call me if he feels up to having lunch one of these days, I'd love to catch up."

"Hey." Harry caught up with her and tapped her shoulder. "He's just sleeping right now. I can call you when he wakes up." She paused, remembering Mary's comment about 'Reenie' and thinking about Mary and Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and Harry herself, all of whom were seriously fucked up or about to be seriously fucked up about John's reappearance. He left all of them in the dark: his family, his friends, his coworkers. They all needed support, dammit.

"You know what, screw the calling when he wakes up. You wanna talk and have lunch right now?" Harry asked, motioning toward the road.

Mary cautiously let a small smile slip through. "Yes, that sounds really nice, actually."

Harry took her hand off Mary's shoulder to whistle for a cab. "There's a new cafe a few streets over that I've been meaning to try. On the way there, you can tell me who Reenie is. She sounds like she needs some lunch too."

* * *

It went slowly.

Everything went slowly.

John slept on the couch after the first night; Harry and Sherlock had bedrooms and he didn't want to intrude on anyone's personal space unless he was allowed.

He got a job under a different name and worked 40 hours a week, paying for the rent on the flat and his own food and toiletries. Sometimes Harry, who actually knew where the rent came from and how to bill the clients, would give him slightly proud, slightly confused looks when she noticed that her and Sherlock's accounts weren't depleting. John only went out to bring takeaway back to the flat or to have dinner with Irene and Kate or Mary or all three of them. They knew what he'd gone through and understood him, but he still wanted to make his disappearance up to them. They deserved better.

Kate had had the baby. Her name was Joanna.

Sherlock rarely talked to him and Harry glared at him more often than not but he knew he wouldn't get anywhere if he pushed. He wanted Sherlock's beautiful brain back in his life, he wanted Harry's sarcasm and really soft hugs, but he fucked up. This distance was his fault, and he'd known that going in. It was just painful sometimes.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked out of the blue.

John frowned. "We're out of milk, I was going to go buy more."

"It's three in the morning. I'm screwing up Sherlock's experiment by even being awake right now, much less talking to you."

"I thought that experiment only had a two-week duration."

Harry rolled her eyes. "Long-term data is more reliable, he told me." She paused. "Well, don't let me stop you. Milk won't buy itself."

John jerked his head in a half-nod. "Yeah. I should be back in less than an hour."

It turned out Tesco's wasn't open in the middle of the night. He should have remembered that. John ended up wandering around London the better part of that hour, looking for someplace else to buy milk this early. He should have just tried to go back to sleep, but there were so many sounds outside and he'd gotten so cautious. He couldn't help but think someone was coming, so he decided leaving the flat and getting some air would help.

"Hindered at every turn," he huffed over-dramatically, flashing a small smile at a couple walking on the other side of the street.

John finally found a tiny mom-and-pop store and bought a carton of milk, telling the exhausted teenage cashier to keep the change. He was definitely too far away from the flat to carry the milk without it going bad so he hailed an equally exhausted-looking cabbie and went home. Hopefully Harry had gone back to sleep. She and Sherlock ran about at all hours and they needed rest more often than Sherlock insisted they did, ongoing sleep experiment notwithstanding.

He entered the flat as quietly as he could, tiptoeing up the stairs and unlocking the door with as little noise as was possible for handling keys. John put the milk in the refrigerator and walked over to the couch, taking off his sweater and leaving his tank top on. He wiggled a little on the couch to adjust comfortably and pulled a blanket over his torso.

Maybe he'd get a couple hours of sleep in before he went to work.

He closed his eyes and tried to will himself to drift off; he counted sheep up to 256 before he lost count, he tried to slow his heartbeat and breathing rate, he even reached over to the coffee table to pull the airtight lid off the lavender, but he still felt fully awake.

He could ask Sherlock if he could sleep on the floor in his room. Knowing Sherlock was nearby had helped him sleep when they'd been together, so it would probably work now. But that wasn't an option at this point, Sherlock (and Harry) had made that very clear.

Just this once maybe? Just once would be able to tide him over for a while.

Just once.

John sat up and took his blanket with him, padding over to Sherlock's room. It would only be a few hours, and then he'd get back to living the life he'd fatally constructed for himself.

He knocked on the bedroom door and waited for Sherlock to open it. Honestly John could probably sleep in the hallway outside if he never answered.

"Hey," he whispered as Sherlock cracked his door open. "Can I sleep on your floor tonight?" Sherlock rubbed a hand over his face. "It'll only be for a few hours and then I'll leave you alone. I just need a few hours before work tomorrow." He still didn't answer, so John awkwardly repeated, "Just a few hours."

Sherlock slowly shook his head.

John took a deep breath. "Okay."

* * *

It didn't take long to pack everything. He owned enough clothes to be put in a duffel-bag and a single gun; the rest of it belonged in the flat with Harry and Sherlock.

He'd go to work today and research whether his old flat, his Army flat, was vacant.

See, John had come to inevitable conclusion that coming back had helped no one except himself. Harry and Sherlock had built their own lives without him and he had utterly fucked with their routine and stability. Reenie and Mary and Kate were worried about him but those relationships were reparable; they knew who he'd been and had some idea of what he'd been doing. He'd brutally blindsided his sister and _Sherlock_ emotionally and he couldn't take living with them and barely _touching_ them, much less interacting with the people he loved most in the world and it _hurt_ so badly and worst of all, he deserved every cold shoulder and angry glance but he was too much of a coward to continue enduring it.

 _They don't want you anymore,_ a mean little voice in his head kept saying. _Get over it and move on._

John quickly and efficiently folded his blanket, put his keys on top of it, picked up his bag and left.

* * *

Work was so long and awful today, John felt like gouging his own eyes out.

Children kept screaming in the waiting room and everybody was sick and all the parents were angry and all the adult patients were snapping at him and at least three nurses had given him pitying looks and he wanted to collapse on his desk in despair, but he still had two more patients before he could get dinner and go back to his tiny box of a flat.

The first one was a woman with a nasty case of strep throat. John prescribed amoxicillin and rest, signed a piece of paper and sent her to the pharmacist with a drooping wave of his hand.

The second one was Sherlock.

John could scarcely do more than sit up straighter at his desk. "Hey, Sherlock."

"When I shook my head to you sleeping on the floor, I didn't mean for you to walk out." His fists were clenched and he looked as angry as John had ever seen him, but John lacked the energy to say much.

"You two don't need me and sure as hell don't seem to want me there, so I left before you could kick me out. I probably couldn't handle that," he replied flatly.

"Did you ever think we did want you there and did need you, but were exceptionally bad at saying so?" Sherlock asked loudly.

"It was _over a month,_ Sherlock. I was letting the both of you call all the shots and you gave me _two_ clues that I'd get my home back after I spent a year trying to protect you, trying to make up for every lie I ever told you. Two clues, and it was Harry dragging me off the front steps and you letting me sleep in your room that first night. I _tried_ , I looked everywhere for any tiny indication that I'd be able to fix this." John let out a long exhale. "And it appears that I couldn't."

"That doesn't mean you leave, John! It means you communicate this with us," Sherlock said, pacing.

"Leaving is easier than living like I was." Sherlock scoffed at him. "I've lived with Harry for my whole life and you for more than a year, and I know when you're feeling angry or sad or bored or content. I saw nothing welcoming or happy while I was there. I honestly just wanted you to stop being uncomfortable all the time."

"You give us so little credit. We were trying to figure you out too. You'd gotten very good at lying and Harry and I tried to gauge how you felt every day, even though I knew my deductions weren't going to be reliable."

"Why didn't you talk to me then? I just wanted you to tell me what you wanted." John sighed. "I wanted to know where I stood, but Harry was a brick wall and you rarely spoke to me longer than thirty seconds."

"Talking to you had become unreliable!"

"So you just let me exist by myself?" John put his face in his hands. "Sherlock, feel free to keep shouting at me but I would rather go back to my flat and drink until I can't see straight, okay?"

Sherlock huffed and stopped pacing, bracing his hand on a chair. "Come home, John."

John blinked and looked up. "What?"

"Come home. Harry's scarily irritable and shouty without you. And," he paused, "I didn't mean for you to leave. I just needed to come to terms with letting you back into that part of my life."

"What part of your life?" John whispered.

"The part where you and I are together. Dating, sleeping together, being disgustingly affectionate. That part."

"Are you sure?" John seriously doubted he was awake at the moment.

"Yes," Sherlock answered impatiently. "You have to know I forgave you."

John laughed once, a bit hysterically. "You forgave me?"

"Yes. Now come home, I can feel Harry barraging me with texts."

* * *

Harry shouted at him for another twenty minutes when he'd came back to the flat and even Sherlock was wincing at the noise level, but she tackled him in a hug when she was finished and it was like he could start breathing again.

Sherlock kissed him for the first time since he'd been back that night, arguing about the parentage of a character on a soap opera.

Sherlock told him he loved him two days later, blearily staring at the cup of tea John had set in front of him.

They slept in the same room, in the same bed, a week later, Sherlock in his arms.

And as John laid there, he wondered if James had known it would turn out like this. But he pulled Sherlock closer and fell asleep.

The world had grown back.

* * *

 **Thank you so much for reading. This has been a long two years coming and I'm eternally grateful for everyone's feedback, favorites, and follows. See you next fic!**


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